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Descriptive study of the aviation & aerospace industries' importance in Florida & Volusia County as well as the local economic impact of an established aerospace technology research park.

Using a detailed description of the interrelatedness of the aviation and aerospace industry with principal industries in Florida and Volusia County (VC) using Input-Output (IO) analysis, this research provided an economic impact analysis of the creation of a university research park in Daytona Beach (DB).  The economic impact measures included not only direct economic output and industry employment descriptions but also described the multiplier effects in the form of indirect and induced impacts using data for 2012. 

Since the aviation and aerospace average labor income is higher than the average labor income in VC, it would be a positive move for VC’s economy to attract and grow the aviation and aerospace industry through the addition of a research park.  It would be highly unlikely that the entirety of newly created jobs would be resourced from the local population.  Nonetheless, growing the research park would have a positive influence on the region’s economy and tax revenues.  Industry interdependencies also presented risk.  If the aviation and aerospace industry experiences a contraction, then through the interdependencies of the industries, the region would contract twice as much as the aviation and aerospace industry.

The overall impact of a university research park would benefit Florida’s economy. Since the research park project is currently funded partially by public state money, 14 sectors of the economy experienced negative impacts.  While the net result was an increase in additional labor income, the employment growth was characterized by gaining more lower-paying jobs while losing less higher-paying jobs.  The most expected outcome, an expansion of the aviation and aerospace industry, was not evidenced by the model results.