Josselin Droff, Jade Guiberteau and Julien Malizard took part in the 25th edition of the’International conference on economics and security (ICES).
Organised from 29 June to 2 July at the University of Perugia (Italy), This year's event brought together fifty specialists from all over the world (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Netherlands, South Africa, Brazil, etc.).
For more than 20 years, this annual international conference has provided an opportunity to economists, political science researchers and researchers from other disciplines to present their work on the economics of defence, security and peace.
Researchers from the Chair have been taking part in this event for several years, which aims to cover different research themes in defence and security economics. The themes most represented at this year's event were data, defence innovation, cybersecurity, European defence issues and industrial challenges.
Two research papers were presented by researchers from the Chair.
1st article: Data on French Arms Exports: do they tell the same story?
Jade Guiberteau presented a study conducted with Josselin Droff and Julien Malizard on French arms exports.
- The aim was to highlight the methodological issues raised by the existence of two sources, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database and Report to Parliament on French arms exports, to define French arms exports.
- For this study, a consistency index based on annual variations in arms exports between 1991 and 2019 was created. Analysis of this index showed that for 40% to 50% of the observations, the information did not match between the two sources. In order to reduce these inconsistencies, three treatments were tested.
- The sample taken into account has been reduced to only those countries where France has already exported war materiel from at least one of the two sources. This treatment reduces the consistency between sources from 58% to 48%.
- The same analysis was carried out on France's top 20 customer countries. While the two rankings differ between sources, the index is still largely reduced. The differences are very significant for these countries.
- Finally, the index has been calculated on the basis of third-order moving averages rather than annual variations. Consistency has been marginally improved.
- Finally, to measure these differences. The data were tested in an econometric model to see the impact of these differences in an empirical analysis. The two models did not produce the same results. This highlights the importance of methodological work when using data for research.
2nd article: The rebirth of a Cold war dinosaur? A study of the main battle tank (MBT) market in Europe
Josselin Droff presented the work carried out with Julien Malizard and Laure Noël on the Main Battle Tanks (MBT) in Europe.
- Today, the notion of a high-intensity conflict implies, on the contrary, a return of the volume of forces and a form of technological symmetry between adversaries. Most recent European strategic documents mention the importance of preparing for the possibility of a conflict of this type. In military history, MBT is particularly emblematic of high-intensity armed conflicts. From an industrial point of view, MBT programmes are particularly important from a technological and financial point of view for the land armaments sector. So what are the market dynamics for battle tanks in Europe?
- Based on the construction of statistical indicators such as the evolution of the fleets, their age, their origin and their diversity, this article proposes a quantitative analysis of the fleets of the European States. Based on this analysis of demand, the organisation of industrial supply to meet the needs of the different countries is studied. The size of the battle tank market, which is strategic in nature, is determined solely by the demand from governments. This, in turn, determines the size of the industry, which can range from complete control of production, through licensed production, to production of a system.
- A Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) is used to construct a typology combining the strategic ambitions of countries (demand) and their industrial capacities and strategies (supply).
- This study provides a better understanding of how different European countries are likely to position themselves in the MBT segment - either as prime contractor or as partner - given the state of their installed base, their strategic ambitions and their industrial skills. Highlighting this typology will enable us to discuss the market dynamics at work in Europe and the technological and strategic race for the «MBT of the future» (industrial prospects and analysis of the competition and «new entrants», cooperation, risks of capability and technological gaps).
