Advanced Public Procurement as Industrial Policy: The Aircraft Industry as a Technical University

Gunnar Eliasson

Mar 2010 · Economics of Science, Technology and Innovation Book 34 · Springer Science & Business Media

About this ebook

This study is about the macroeconomic effects of positive externalities or industrial spillovers around advanced production. The case explored is the “technology di- dend” around Swedish aircraft industry, and in particular around the aircraft ma- facturer Saab, and the major industrial project of the JAS 39 Gripen multirole combat aircraft. The project is partly an updating of my book (in Swedish) Technology 1 Generator or a National Presige Project from 1995, but extends the analysis in s- eral directions. The study includes a chapter on spillovers from advanced production in an industrially developing economy, South Africa, that has acquired the JAS 39 Gripen for its Air Force. There is also a chapter in which the results for Sweden are discussed in the wider context of advanced public procurement in Europe. The text has been organized such that the main chapters have been written for academic readers. Two supplements include the technical details of data collection, mathematical models, and calculation methods. The first chapter is brief and focused on the results. It has the character of an extended executive summary. The second chapter summarizes the entire story; problems, results, and methods. This project would not have been possible without the generous support of a number of people. First of all great thanks go to all those people with crowded calendars in Swedish industrial firms that have set aside time to respond to my questions. Most of them have been listed at the end of the book.

About the author

Gunnar Eliasson is professor em of Industrial Economics/Dynamics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm . He is an associate senior researcher at the Ratio Institute in Stockholm. He was previously president of the Industrial Institute for Economic and Social Research (IUI) in Stockholm and before that Chief Economist and Director of the Economic Policy Department at the Federation of Swedish Industries. From 1994 to 1996 he was the President of the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society. He is the father of the Swedish micro to macro simulation model MOSES and the theory of the Experimentally Organized Economy and of Competence Blocs. He has published many books and many journal articles in the fields of industrial economics, the theory of the firm, business economic planning and management, labor and education economics and simulation modeling. Among the books can be mentioned Business Economic Planning (1976), Technological Competition and Trade in the Experimentally Organized Economy (1987), The Knowledge Based Information Economy (1990) , Firm Objectives, Controls and Organization (1996) and The Birth, the Life and the Death of Firms (2005).

Together with his wife Ulla he has authored a study on the 15th century art markets in Northern Italy and Florence (1997).

Gunnar Eliasson ́s current research is focused on the economics of the firm and management, technology, entrepreneurship and economic development and on the competence demands on the labor markets of the New Economy.