The Relative Efficiency of Military Research and Development in the Soviet Union

A Systems Approach

Gur Ofer

ResearchPublished 1980

The Soviet military R&D sector benefits from a wide range of material, administrative, and other priorities, which impose heavy opportunity costs, expecially on civilian R&D. R&D is relatively more expensive in a command economy, so less of it should be used than in a market system. The Soviet use of much less R&D in its military sector is as rational as the American use of much more R&D where R&D is reltively less expensive. If less military R&D is used in the USSR, a measure of its efficiency derived as a ratio of military output to military R&D is biased upward. The relative efficiency of Soviet military R&D is probably much lower than otherwise assumed because input costs are higher and output lower than usually estimated. The arms race is costlier to the Soviet Union than otherwise believed, both absolutely and as an alternative to economic development.

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Ofer, Gur, The Relative Efficiency of Military Research and Development in the Soviet Union: A Systems Approach. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1980. https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R2522.html.
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