The Economic and Social Value of Science and Technology Parks. The Case of Tecnocampus

Abstract

This article aims to measure both the economic and social value of Tecnocampus, a Science and Technology Park in its region of influence (Mataró city in the Maresme region of Catalonia, Spain). Our results show that the impact of Tecnocampus has a socioeconomic cost–benefit ratio of 2.39. Measuring the impact of this multifaceted centre requires a diverse approach. Although the methods used are not new, the combination of them presents a novel approach to measure the impact of an institution of this nature. We have measured the economic value with the Input–Output model, including the Social Accounting Matrix. On the other hand, for social value calculations, we have used cost–benefit analysis adding measurements of firm localisation to estimate externality effects. Our main results present an economic value of more than 0.054% of the Catalan GDP, whereas the employment impact represents almost 0.37% of total employment in the region. The total economic multiplier of Tecnocampus activity is estimated to be 1.89. Social value generates an additional 0.50 euros to the multiplier according with our analysis. This additional social value represents an increase of productivity estimated in 20 million euros of operational income for Catalan firms and the creation of seven additional firms in the Maresme region as a result of knowledge spillovers. The social value also includes reduction of over-education caused by a better matching between graduates and enterprises, a more direct application of research, and an increase in consumer surplus. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of our findings to promote investments in this kind of infrastructures.

The Fruit and Vegetable Sector in Andalusia (Spain): Key in Terms of Linkages and the Effect of Economic Multipliers?

“…This is the estimate of the sum of the direct, indirect, and induced effects over the initial direct effects. Induced effects are the changes in household expenditure caused by changes in household income (generated by direct and indirect effects) (Torres-Prun˜onosa et al, 2020).…”

Is It Possible to Monetarily Quantify the Emotional Value Transferred by Companies and Organizations? An Emotional Accounting Proposal

“…Although the work is theoretical, it is underpinned by a large number of cases analyzed in recent years by the social accounting for sustainability (SAS) research group, recognized by International Centre of Research and Information on the Public, Social and Cooperative Economy (CIRIEC), some of which are published in leading journals, general papers (Retolaza et al, 2016 ; Retolaza and San-Jose, 2021 ), on its application in the social economy in general (Lazcano et al, 2019 ; Lazkano and Beraza, 2019 ; Etxanobe, 2020 ; Lazkano et al, 2020 ), on its usefulness to measure hospital efficiency (San-Jose et al, 2019 ), about sport clubs (Mendizabal et al, 2020 ; Mendizabal and Garcia-Merino, 2021 ), applied to ecclesiastical organizations (Retolaza et al, 2020 ), to universities and education (Ayuso et al, 2020 ; Arimany-Serrat and Tarrats-Pons, 2021 ; Barba-Sánchez et al, 2021a ), its benefit for technology parks (Blázquez et al, 2020 ; Torres-Pruñonosa et al, 2020 ), associations of fishers (Guzmán-Pérez et al, 2018 ), tourism (Guzmán-Pérez et al, 2021 ), public tenders (Bernal et al, 2019 ), and agri-food companies (Barba-Sánchez et al, 2021b ). These studies identify the importance of emotional value and propose its inclusion in social accounting, which has so far been partially addressed by few studies (Ruiz-Roqueñi, 2020 ; Tirado-Valencia et al, 2021 ).…”