Decomposing the impacts: Lessons from a multistate analysis of enterprise zone programs
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Date
2005-06
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Publisher
John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy and School of Public Policy and Management. The Ohio State University
Abstract
This paper exploits the exogenous variation of the U.S. state enterprise zone policies to estimate the impact of geographically- targeted tax incentives on a number of dimensions of local economic growth. The econometric analysis uses plant-level data from 11 state programs to sort out growth outcomes into gross flows separately accounted for by new, existing, and vanishing establishments in the target areas. The paper extends the literature by moving beyond a dichotomous treatment indicator to incorporate the contribution of a number common zone policy features. Although the findings of no net mean impacts of the zone programs on various measure of growth is consistent with previous research, the disaggregation into various gross flows and examination of the heterogeneity of policy implementation shows that the impacts of the incentives are more complex. Such analysis also lends itself to a more useful set of policy recommendations.
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Keywords
tax incentives, enterprise zones, local economic growth, program evaluation