[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/28594.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Combining Rules and Discretion in Economic Development Policy: Evidence on the Impacts of the California Competes Tax Credit

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew Freedman
  • David Neumark
  • Shantanu Khanna
Abstract
We evaluate the effects of one of a new generation of economic development programs, the California Competes Tax Credit (CCTC), on local job creation. Incorporating perceived best practices from previous initiatives, the CCTC combines explicit eligibility thresholds with some discretion on the part of program officials to select tax credit recipients. The structure and implementation of the program facilitates rigorous evaluation. We exploit detailed data on accepted and rejected applicants to the CCTC, including information on scoring of applicants with regard to program goals and funding decisions, together with restricted access American Community Survey (ACS) data on local economic conditions. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that each CCTC-incentivized job in a census tract increases the number of individuals working in that tract by over two – a significant local multiplier. We also explore the program’s distributional implications and impacts by industry. We find that CCTC awards increase employment among workers residing in both high income and low income communities, and that the local multipliers are larger for non-manufacturing awards than for manufacturing awards.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew Freedman & David Neumark & Shantanu Khanna, 2021. "Combining Rules and Discretion in Economic Development Policy: Evidence on the Impacts of the California Competes Tax Credit," NBER Working Papers 28594, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28594
    Note: LS PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w28594.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brachert, Matthias & Dettmann, Eva & Titze, Mirko, 2019. "The regional effects of a place-based policy – Causal evidence from Germany," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    2. Timothy J. Bartik, 2020. "Using Place-Based Jobs Policies to Help Distressed Communities," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 99-127, Summer.
    3. Pierre Cahuc & Stéphane Carcillo & Thomas Le Barbanchon, 2019. "The Effectiveness of Hiring Credits," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03391893, HAL.
    4. Patrick, Carlianne, 2016. "Jobless capital? The role of capital subsidies," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 169-179.
    5. Timothy J. Bartik & George Erickcek, 2010. "The Employment and Fiscal Effects of Michigan's MEGA Tax Credit Program," Upjohn Working Papers 10-164, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    6. Hanson, Andrew & Rohlin, Shawn, 2013. "Do spatially targeted redevelopment programs spillover?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 86-100.
    7. Cailin Slattery & Owen Zidar, 2020. "Evaluating State and Local Business Tax Incentives," Working Papers 261, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    8. Kenneth A. Couch & Douglas J. Besharov & David Neumark, 2013. "Spurring Job Creation in Response to Severe Recessions: Reconsidering Hiring Credits," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 142-171, January.
    9. Freedman, Matthew, 2015. "Place-based programs and the geographic dispersion of employment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-19.
    10. Chiara Criscuolo & Ralf Martin & Henry G. Overman & John Van Reenen, 2019. "Some Causal Effects of an Industrial Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 48-85, January.
    11. Enrico Moretti & Per Thulin, 2013. "Local multipliers and human capital in the United States and Sweden," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 22(1), pages 339-362, February.
    12. Pierre Cahuc & Stéphane Carcillo & Thomas Le Barbanchon, 2019. "The Effectiveness of Hiring Credits," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(2), pages 593-626.
    13. Michael Greenstone & Richard Hornbeck & Enrico Moretti, 2010. "Identifying Agglomeration Spillovers: Evidence from Winners and Losers of Large Plant Openings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(3), pages 536-598, June.
    14. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    15. Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Zhao, Jun, 2020. "Doubly robust difference-in-differences estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 101-122.
    16. Timothy J. Bartik, 2019. "Should Place-Based Jobs Policies Be Used to Help Distressed Communities?," Upjohn Working Papers 19-308, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    17. Cailin Slattery & Owen Zidar, 2020. "Evaluating State and Local Business Incentives," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 90-118, Spring.
    18. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    19. David Neumark & Diego Grijalva, 2017. "The Employment Effects of State Hiring Credits," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 70(5), pages 1111-1145, October.
    20. David Neumark & Brandon Wall & Junfu Zhang, 2011. "Do Small Businesses Create More Jobs? New Evidence for the United States from the National Establishment Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 16-29, August.
    21. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    22. Kaitlyn Harger & Amanda Ross, 2016. "Do Capital Tax Incentives Attract New Businesses? Evidence Across Industries From The New Markets Tax Credit," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(5), pages 733-753, November.
    23. Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), 2015. "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 5, number 5.
    24. Timothy J. Bartik & Nathan Sotherland, 2019. "Local Job Multipliers in the United States: Variation with Local Characteristics and with High-Tech Shocks," Upjohn Working Papers 19-301, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    25. Matthew Freedman, 2013. "Targeted Business Incentives and Local Labor Markets," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 48(2), pages 311-344.
    26. Matias Busso & Jesse Gregory & Patrick Kline, 2013. "Assessing the Incidence and Efficiency of a Prominent Place Based Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 897-947, April.
    27. Cerqua, Augusto & Pellegrini, Guido, 2022. "Decomposing the employment effects of investment subsidies," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    28. Pierre Cahuc & Stéphane Carcillo & Thomas Le Barbanchon, 2019. "The Effectiveness of Hiring Credits," SciencePo Working papers hal-03391893, HAL.
    29. Pamela Jakiela, 2021. "Simple Diagnostics for Two-Way Fixed Effects," Department of Economics Working Papers 2021-05, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    30. Faulk, Dagney, 2002. "Do State Economic Development Incentives Create Jobs? An Analysis of State Employment Tax Credits," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 55(2), pages 263-280, June.
    31. Freedman, Matthew, 2012. "Teaching new markets old tricks: The effects of subsidized investment on low-income neighborhoods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(11), pages 1000-1014.
    32. Kitchens, Carl & Wallace, Cullen T., 2022. "The impact of place-based poverty relief: Evidence from the Federal Promise Zone Program," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    33. Einiö, Elias & Overman, Henry G., 2020. "The effects of supporting local business: Evidence from the UK," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    34. Cecile Gaubert & Patrick M. Kline & Damián Vergara & Danny Yagan, 2021. "Place-Based Redistribution," NBER Working Papers 28337, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    35. Andrew S. Green & Mark J. Kutzbach & Lars Vilhuber, 2017. "Two Perspectives on Commuting: A Comparison of Home to Work Flows Across Job-Linked Survey and Administrative Files," Working Papers 17-34, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    36. Andrew Hanson & Shawn Rohlin, 2011. "Do Location‐Based Tax Incentives Attract New Business Establishments?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 427-449, August.
    37. John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2013. "Who Creates Jobs? Small versus Large versus Young," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 347-361, May.
    38. Neumark, David & Kolko, Jed, 2010. "Do enterprise zones create jobs? Evidence from California's enterprise zone program," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 1-19, July.
    39. Matthew R. Graham & Mark J. Kutzbach & Brian McKenzie, 2014. "Design Comparison of LODES and ACS Commuting Data Products," Working Papers 14-38, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    40. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    41. Faulk, Dagney, 2002. "Do State Economic Development Incentives Create Jobs? An Analysis of State Employment Tax Credits," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 55(N. 2), pages 263-280, June.
    42. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2rcfhie1t29t8ri11cvv60qku0 is not listed on IDEAS
    43. Benjamin G. Hyman & Matthew Freedman & Shantanu Khanna & David Neumark, 2022. "Firm Responses to State Hiring Subsidies: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from a Tax Credit Formula," NBER Working Papers 30664, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    44. Jasper Jacob van Dijk, 2017. "Local employment multipliers in U.S. cities," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 465-487.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Freedman, Matthew & Khanna, Shantanu & Neumark, David, 2023. "JUE Insight: The Impacts of Opportunity Zones on Zone Residents," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew Hanson, 2021. "Taxes and Economic Development: An Update on the State of the Economics Literature," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 35(3), pages 232-253, August.
    2. Neumark, David & Simpson, Helen, 2015. "Place-Based Policies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1197-1287, Elsevier.
    3. Freedman, Matthew & Khanna, Shantanu & Neumark, David, 2023. "JUE Insight: The Impacts of Opportunity Zones on Zone Residents," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    4. Manon Garrouste & Miren Lafourcade, 2022. "Place-Based Policies: Opportunity for Deprived Schools or Zone-and-Shame Effect?," Post-Print hal-04329793, HAL.
    5. Einiö, Elias & Overman, Henry G., 2020. "The effects of supporting local business: Evidence from the UK," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    6. Faggio, G. & Schluter, T. & vom Berge, P., 2019. "Interaction of Public and Private Employment: Evidence from a German Government Move," Working Papers 19/09, Department of Economics, City University London.
    7. Sebastian Siegloch & Nils Wehrhöfer & Tobias Etzel, 2022. "Spillover, Efficiency and Equity Effects of Regional Firm Subsidies," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 210, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    8. Kaitlyn Harger & Amanda Ross, 2016. "Do Capital Tax Incentives Attract New Businesses? Evidence Across Industries From The New Markets Tax Credit," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(5), pages 733-753, November.
    9. Tien Manh Vu & Hiroyuki Yamada, 2022. "Do enterprise zones promote local business development? Evidence from Vietnam," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 1206-1224, September.
    10. Mark Partridge & Sydney Schreiner & Alexandra Tsvetkova & Carlianne Elizabeth Patrick, 2020. "The Effects of State and Local Economic Incentives on Business Start-Ups in the United States: County-Level Evidence," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 34(2), pages 171-187, May.
    11. Amanda Ross & Kaitlyn Wolf, 2014. "Do Market-Based Tax Incentives Attract New Businesses? Evidence from the New Markets Tax Credit," ERSA conference papers ersa14p653, European Regional Science Association.
    12. David Neumark & Timothy Young, 2021. "Heterogeneous Effects of State Enterprise Zone Programs in the Shorter Run and Longer Run," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 35(2), pages 91-107, May.
    13. Miren Lafourcade & Florian Mayneris, 2017. "En Finir avec les ghettos urbains ?," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-01884340, HAL.
    14. Reynolds, C. Lockwood & Rohlin, Shawn M., 2015. "The effects of location-based tax policies on the distribution of household income: Evidence from the federal Empowerment Zone program," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 1-15.
    15. Kim, Hyejin & Lee, Jungmin, 2019. "Can employment subsidies save jobs? Evidence from a shipbuilding city in South Korea," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    16. Federico Cingano & Filippo Palomba & Paolo Pinotti & Enrico Rettore, 2022. "Making Subsidies Work: Rules vs. Discretion," CESifo Working Paper Series 9560, CESifo.
    17. Freedman, Matthew, 2015. "Place-based programs and the geographic dispersion of employment," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-19.
    18. Mikhail Ivonchyk, 2022. "Local Economic Development Policies and Business Activity: Dynamic Panel Data Analysis of All County Governments in the State of Georgia," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 36(2), pages 92-107, May.
    19. Cerqua, Augusto & Pellegrini, Guido, 2022. "Decomposing the employment effects of investment subsidies," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    20. Gibbons, Stephen & Overman, Henry & Sarvimäki, Matti, 2021. "The local economic impacts of regeneration projects: Evidence from UK's single regeneration budget," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28594. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.