Nov 23 1978
From The Space Library
ESA reported results of an attempt to quantify economic returns from its expenditures on space research, by cataloging and quantifying the positive benefits to industrial firms participating in the European space program and by identifying economic spinoffs outside the space effort generated in European industry from ESA contracts. ESA wanted to know what benefits its payments had procured for European firms and what amounts they represented in financial terms. It had asked the Theoretical and Applied Economics Department of Louis Pasteur Univ., Strasbourg, France, to conduct the study.
Information collected from ESA contractors had identified and quantified 171 specific cases of benefit: for example, sales of new products, increased sales, maintenance of a production team, reduction of production and R&D costs, and amortization of equipment. The study classified the benefits under four major headings: technology, commerce, organization and methods, and work force efficiency. Benefits obtained outside ESA-member states accounted for 28% of the total, and 68% of the total benefit related to nonspace activities. Analysis showed the benefit/contracts ratio for each country was fairly uniform: for example, Germany 3.2, United Kingdom 2.9, Italy 2.6, France 2.5, and other member states, 2.2. This study of secondary economic effects generated by ESA contracts confirmed the agency's success in promoting European industry worldwide. Moreover, the showing of economic benefits to individual countries demonstrated that they exceeded the amounts governments had invested in space research. A second phase of the study would produce a more precise analysis of the benefits by including economic factors not previously taken into account. (ESA Release Nov 23/78)
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