Local Employment, Poverty, and Property Value Effects of Geographically-Targeted Tax Incentives: An Instrumental Variables Approach

Authors

Andrew Hanson, Marquette UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Format of Original

11 p.

Publication Date

2009

Publisher

Elsevier

Source Publication

Regional Science and Urban Economics

Source ISSN

0166-0462

Abstract

The federal Empowerment Zone (EZ) program is a set of tax incentives targeted to areas of select cities. I estimate the effect of the EZ program on employment, poverty, and property values by comparing areas that received an EZ to areas that applied (and qualified), but were rejected. Because of endogeneity concerns, I use political representation to instrument for EZ designation. OLS results show a positive and statistically significant effect of the program on employment and poverty. IV estimates suggest the program had no effect on employment and poverty, and instead had a large statistically significant effect on property values.

Comments

Accepted version. Regional Science and Urban Economics, Vol. 39, No. 6 (November 2009): 721-731. DOI. Published under Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.

Andrew Hanson was affiliated with Georgia State University at the time of publication.

Recommended Citation

Hanson, Andrew, "Local Employment, Poverty, and Property Value Effects of Geographically-Targeted Tax Incentives: An Instrumental Variables Approach" (2009). Economics Faculty Research and Publications. 201.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/econ_fac/201