A formal econometric impact analysis of the Agere / Lucent / Cirent Semiconductor wafer fabrication and research facilities in Orlando, Florida conducted for the Florida High Tech Corridor Council and Florida TaxWatch.

The Florida Cluster Metrics Task Force was established in 1999 to set standards for forecasting the public benefit of economic development investments in technology industries. The recommendations of this Task Force were published in 2000 by Florida TaxWatch as “Florida’s High Tech Corridor: Opening the Door to Florida’s Future.”

The primary case studies examined by the Task Force were concerned the combined expansions of the Lucent, Bell Laboratories and Cirent Semiconductor (now collectively “Agere”) facilities in Orange County. With the downturn of technology industries over the last few years, these Agere facilities have not expanded as expected, and in fact may experience complete or partial closure in 2002.

This report compares the 2000 report to investment and performance levels to date, and measures whether public investments to date in Florida Agere facilities were responsible uses of public funds given “20/20 hindsight” information.

It is available here for download as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.