ESA Space Economy Team presents a paper on “Statistic and thematic satellite accounts for measuring the Space Economy” at the 73rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris [Sep/2022]
On 20 September 2022, the ESA Space Economy
team will present a paper on ‘Statistic and thematic satellite accounts for
measuring the Space Economy”, co-written with the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
at the occasion of the 73rd International Astronautical Congress
(IAC) to be held in Paris on 18-22 September. The presentation will be given at
the technical session E3.3 on “Economic analysis of both actual and potential
future benefits from space activities and applications to nations and peoples”.
In the context of current economic, environmental
and societal issues, space has an ever more important role to play. Yet, a robust
set of consistent and reliable data is needed to both size and monitor the actual
trends of the Space Economy.
Current estimates rely mostly on industry
survey, leaving many data gaps, as well as a wide divergence within the available
literature on how much is worth the Space Economy. While the figures provide interesting
insights across the various segments of the space industry, they also highlight
shortcomings in terms of how space contributes to the economy, especially
through comparable indicators such as output, gross value-added (GVA) or
employment.
Thematic satellite accounts are a complementary
set of statistics within the central framework of national accounts. They allow
to highlight specific sectors of the economy that may not be obvious to find in
the core set by identifying and quantifying relevant products (goods and
services) across industries and economic activities.
The presented paper aims at investigating the
potential of satellite account approaches for measuring and monitoring the
Space Economy. It presents current limitations in the available measures of the
Space Economy, results and lessons learnt from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis
experience on their SESA (Space Economy satellite account) as well as insights
from the OECD and the new cooperation project at European level between the
European Space Agency, Eurostat and the Joint Research Centre (JRC).
More information about the IAC “Economic
analysis of both actual and potential future benefits from space activities and
applications to nations and peoples” E3.3 session as well as access to all
abstracts can be found here.
The full programme of the IAC can be found here.