Title

State Enterprise Zone Programs: Have They Worked?

Year

2002

Abstract

Peters and Fisher evaluate 75 EZs located in 13 states to gain an understanding of the overall effectiveness of state enterprise zones. Faced with a paucity of data on EZs that could be used in standard economic analysis, the authors employ a hypothetical firm model in which they apply various EZ and non-EZ incentives to financial statements created for a set of "typical" firms. Observing the impacts of both types of incentives on firms' financial statements allow Peters and Fisher to predict the firms' resulting behavior. Between these findings and the data accumulated from actual EZs, they are able to offer insights on seven key policy issues.

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Enterprise Zones and Economic Development Policy
  3. How Valuable Are Zone Incentives to Firms?
  4. How Taxes and Incentives Favor One Industry over Another and Capital over Labor
  5. The Fiscal Effects of Incentives
  6. Manufacturing Growth and Decline in Enterprise Zones
  7. Enterprise Zones, Incentives, and Local Economic Growth
  8. Enterprise Zones and Access to Employment
  9. Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

ISBN

9780880992497 (pbk.) ; 9780880992503 (cloth)

Subject Areas

REGIONAL ISSUES; Business incentives; Tax incentives; Regional and urban studies; Comparative studies; Urban issues