The Effects of Exporting on Defense Acquisition Outcomes A Quantitative Look at FMS Contracting: Preliminary Findings

Abstract

This paper studies how approaches to security cooperation as well as the characteristics of foreign military sales (FMS) recipients influence defense acquisition outcomes. A review of the literature finds that the lower asset specificity for internationally traded goods, the strength and history of the security relationship, and the quality of partner institutions all are likely influencers of performance. This project has created a unique contract-level FMS dataset, cross-referenced other sources to evaluate the quality of contract reporting, and used to validate economic research regarding the influence of international sales transaction cost.