Accurately measuring real economic output in the space economy is made difficult by the rapid increase in capabilities and decrease in prices of launch and satellite technologies achieved over the past two decades. Nominal measures of output in space will tend to underestimate real growth if customers are paying lower prices for better services over time. In this paper, we use price indexes that apply techniques to the space economy that have been used for decades to adjust nominal measures of output in sectors such as information technology, including matched-model and explicit hedonic quality adjustment. We find that adjusting for price and quality changes in the space economy has substantial effects on estimated growth in economic output, especially across its sectors. Price increases over time in the space information sector, which is dominated by direct-to-home (DTH) satellite television, mean that real growth has been slower than nominal growth since at least 2012, the typical pattern in industries not undergoing rapid technological change. In sharp contrast, rapid price decreases and quality increases in other areas—especially launch and manufacturing of satellite, earth observation, and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) equipment—have meant that nominal growth rates substantially understate real growth rates in those industries. Given the central importance of space to our modern economy, having accurate information on growth in the space economy is vital for efficiently allocating the substantial private and public investment being devoted to its development.

中文翻译：

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航天制造业产出的实际增长大大超过整体航天经济的增长

由于过去二十年来发射和卫星技术的能力迅速提高且价格下降，准确衡量太空经济的实际经济产出变得困难。如果客户随着时间的推移以更低的价格获得更好的服务，那么名义上的太空产出衡量标准往往会低估实际增长。在本文中，我们使用价格指数，该指数将几十年来一直使用的太空经济技术用于调整信息技术等部门的名义产出指标，包括匹配模型和显式特征质量调整。我们发现，调整太空经济的价格和质量变化对经济产出的估计增长具有重大影响，特别是在其各个部门。以直接入户 (DTH) 卫星电视为主的空间信息领域的价格随着时间的推移而上涨，这意味着至少自 2012 年以来，实际增长一直低于名义增长，这是未经历快速技术变革的行业的典型模式。与此形成鲜明对比的是，其他领域的价格快速下降和质量提高，尤其是卫星、地球观测以及定位、导航和授时（PNT）设备的发射和制造，意味着这些行业的名义增长率大大低于实际增长率。鉴于太空对我们现代经济的核心重要性，掌握有关太空经济增长的准确信息对于有效分配用于其发展的大量私人和公共投资至关重要。