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New Approaches to Defense Inflation and Discounting Kathryn Connor, James Dryden CORPORATION NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE New Approaches to Defense Inflation and Discounting Kathryn Connor, James Dryden Prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense Approved for public release; distribution unlimited The research described in this report was prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). The research was conducted within the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by OSD, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community under Contract W74V8H-06-0002. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Connor, Kathryn. New approaches to defense inflation and discounting / Kathryn Connor, James Dryden. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8330-8133-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. United States—Armed Forces—Weapons systems—Costs. 2. United States. Department of Defense—Appropriations and expenditures—Effect of inflation on. I. Dryden, James. II. Title. UC263.C636 2013 355.6'212—dc23 2013032025 The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking throug h research and analysis. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Support RAND—make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute.html R ® is a registered trademark. Cover by iStockphoto/Thinkstock © Copyright 2013 RAND Corporation This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of RAND documents to a non-RAND website is prohibited. RAND documents are protected under copyright law. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of our research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please see the RAND permissions page (www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.html). RAND OFFICES SANTA MONICA, CA • WASHINGTON, DC PITTSBURGH, PA • NEW ORLEANS, LA • JACKSON, MS • BOSTON, MA DOHA, QA • CAMBRIDGE, UK • BRUSSELS, BE www.rand.org Preface The cost of operating and sustaining ground vehicles appears to be growing over time, and for new acquisitions there is concern that maintenance costs will exceed expec- tations. The RAND Corporation is assisting the Office of the Secretary of Defense Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) in determining whether existing Army inflation indices for operations and sustainment are appropriate for future cost estimates. This information will inform CAPE’s review of future ground systems. The study reported here also addresses discounting, since the treatment of the time value of money in decisionmaking diminishes the importance of the operating and support costs of a system. Alternative ways to deal with this bias are addressed. This research was sponsored by CAPE and conducted within the Acquisition Technology Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. For more information on the RAND Acquisition and Technology Policy Center, see or contact the director (contact information is provided on the web page). iii Contents Preface ................................................................................................. iii Figures .................................................................................................vii Tables .................................................................................................. ix Summary .............................................................................................. xi Acknowledgments ................................................................................. xvii Abbreviations ........................................................................................ xix CHAPTER ONE Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 Inflation Indices and Discounting Practices Enable Long-Term Estimating .................. 2 Terminology Captures Both Cost-Analytic Methods and DoD Specifications ................ 3 Organization of This Report .......................................................................... 4 CHAPTER TWO Cost Inflation of Ground-Vehicle Parts ........................................................... 5 The Data Span a 10-Year Period ...................................................................... 5 Three Index Methodologies Are Used in This Study to Assess Inflation ........................ 6 Methodological Limitations Relate to Information Availability.................................. 9 Calculations of Bradley Inflation ..................................................................... 9 Calculations of Abrams Inflation ...................................................................12 Impact of Depot-Repair Price Change on Inflation ..............................................15 Accounting for Outliers ..............................................................................17 Future Inflation May Be Underestimated ..........................................................17 Discussion ..............................................................................................18 CHAPTER THREE The Value of Discounting ..........................................................................21 Discounting Is Used in a Wide Range of Cost Analyses ........................................21 Discounting Practices Differ in Private Sector and Government Decisionmaking .......... 22 OMB Offers Discounting Guidelines ............................................................ 24 DoD Discounting Guidance May Not Reflect Financial Realities .............................25 Discussion ............................................................................................. 26 v vi New Approaches to Inflation and Discounting in Defense Cost Estimates CHAPTER FOUR New Approaches to Inflation and Discounting ................................................29 Next Steps for Inflation ..............................................................................29 Next Steps for Discounting ......................................................................... 30 APPENDIX Inflation Estimates over Time .....................................................................33 Glossary ...............................................................................................39 Bibliography ..........................................................................................41