Enterprise Zones Research Articles

State enterprise zone programs: have they worked?

Peters and Fisher evaluate 75 enterprise zones (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.

DEVELOPMENT ZONES AND URBAN LAND REFORM IN CHINA

Development zones boomed all over China in early 1990s and continue to operate today. This paper examines its economic rationale and impact on Chinese cities. Many existing studies treat development zones like enterprise zones or science parks and of ten blame them for land speculation and farmland loss. I argue that development zone may be better understood as a feasible transitory tool in urban land reform due to dynamic urban growth and its particular institutional form. However, development zones may have problematic impact on urban spatial structure in the long term. In this sense, it demonstrates the cost of partial reform in urban land use.

The Effectiveness of State Enterprise Zones

The Effectiveness of State Enterprise Zones

Policy Tools Theory and Implementation Networks: Understanding State Enterprise Zone Partnerships

Policy Tools Theory and Implementation Networks: Understanding State Enterprise Zone Partnerships

Evaluating Decentralized Policies

This article proposes an empirical method to evaluate decentralized economic development programmes with heterogeneous characteristics implemented in different regions or states. The evaluation design developed in the article is a comparative analysis that operationalizes differences in regional policy features and controls for exogenous factors that may affect outcomes independently from the programme intervention. The proposed method is illustrated and tested through the evaluation of the US Enterprise Zone programmes. The results of the analysis show that the proposed evaluation design is an effective tool for turning the heterogeneity of decentralized economic development programmes from a threat to the validity of the analysis into a great opportunity for testing the effectiveness of a variety of region- (or state-)specific policy implementation features.

Do State‐Designated Enterprise Zones Promote Economic Growth?

In light of the economic stresses faced by many urban and rural places in the 1970s and 1980s, many communities began actively promoting local economic growth. Subsequently, sociologists became interested in the effectiveness of such efforts. In particular, they wanted to know whether places can purposefully alter their economies, or whether ecological and other factors commonly associated with growth are more powerful. State‐designated enterprise zones are an example of such attempts. Data were collected from 51 enterprise zones in the United States. The data indicate that growth in number of firms and number of jobs within the zones did occur. The data also indicate that the rate of growth in the zone often surpassed its respective county. Further, while tax incentives are often touted as the key to economic development, this research finds that attention to the services and quality of life in the zone and a wide range of incentives overall matter more than the provision of tax cuts, subsidies, and other financial incentives alone. These results hold after controlling for other factors known to affect economic development.

Enterprise Zones and Job Creation: Linking Evaluation and Practice

Although enterprise zones have been a popular economic development tool for several years, there is still a lack of evidence on both zone effectiveness and how to improve existing zone programs. This article discusses several evaluation criteria that should be given more attention. First, the article addresses methodological issues in assessing zone benefits, including the importance of comparing places that received zones with a suitably chosen control group of places that did not get zones. Second, the data requirements for enterprise zone evaluation are examined. The link between evaluation and practice is discussed. Zone evaluations must address not only efficiency criteria such as the measurement of benefits and costs but also the question of how to improve the functioning of existing zones. The conclusion is that zone evaluations should pay closer attention to research methodology and strive to document program implementation information that can improve the practice of enterprise zones.

An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Louisville’s Enterprise Zone

Louisville, Kentucky, has one of the oldest and largest enterprise zones (EZs) in the United States, yet until recently, the program had not been independently evaluated. Perhaps because no clearly superior evaluation methodology has emerged in the literature, the efficacy of EZ programs around the United States remains a contentious subject among scholars and policy makers alike. The authors take a quasi-experimental approach in evaluating Louisville’s EZ, using many different measures to give the program every chance to show success. Program tax exemptions and administrative costs of more than $55 million within the 13-year period studied are identified. The measures reveal that one of the EZ’s three objectives was obtained in one geographic subset of the zone, but not because of the EZ policy treatment. The research adds one more case study to the EZ literature and provides another indication of the questionable benefits of EZ programs.

The New Right and Neighbourhood Regeneration

This paper seeks to add to an understanding of the impact and significance of the New Right through an evaluation of neighbourhood regeneration policy in England during the 1980s and 1990s. This area of public policy has been seemingly been little researched being passed over for more high profile urban policy initiatives such as Enterprise Zones and Urban Development Corporations. Such studies largely demonstrate a translation of broad New Right principles into practice. Recently, however, attention has begun to turn to less obvious approaches and a more sensitive and contradictory image has developed. Far from consistency and coherence, evidence of actual impact upon the ground is beginning to point to a more eclectic situation. While there may have been broad principles that could be identified with the Thatcher and Major Governments throughout the 1980s and 1990s, such abstract tenets allowed significant room for evolution and pragmatism, which may, in part, help explain the varied impact of many initiatives. Examination of neighbourhood regeneration policies throughout this period demonstrates an evolution of initiatives and ideas that were influenced by a number of factors. Two stand out in particular. First, a temporal dimension: policy and thinking evolved due to external influences (such as opposition from local authorities and tenants) and the impact of policy itself. Second, a spatial dimension: policy outcome varied in different places. The implications of this are that a more open and less reductionist perspective on the New Right needs to be taken and that studies of the period should highlight a more diverse and contextualised understanding.

The politics of ideas and the spread of enterprise zones

Preface Introduction: Diffusion and Decision Making in Five States Decision Making Models Washington's Most Successful Nonprogram Diffusion in the States: Old Wine in New Bottles? Polydiffusion in an Intergovernmental Network The Diffusion of a Policy Label Informed Decision Making A Decision-Making Continuum Conclusion: Diffusion, Decision Making, and the Politics of Ideas Postscript Appendix 1. Methodology Appendix 2. Legislative Questions Appendix 3. Administrative Questions Appendix 4. Washington Interviews Appendix 5. Respondents Chapter Notes References Index

Past and Present Acts of Exclusion

Past and Present Acts of Exclusion

Identity and Inequality: Race and Space in Planning

Planners' concerns for spatial equity and for racial equity are expressed tangibly through legislation designed to promote regional development, enterprise zones, affirmative action, and in other spheres of practice. Equity concerns take on heightened meaning where issues of space and race intersect, such as inner-city revitalization or environmental justice. This article explores the underlying basis for issues of social justice in the context of race and space, leading to two principle findings. First, there is a tight correspondence between the role of race and space in the social construction of identity and corresponding formulations of social justice. This point is demonstrated using five diverse examples from the realm of practice. Second, there is a danger of misapplication of principles of social justice where the implicit dimensions of one problem sphere are applied to another. This point is illustrated with two examples; a defunct World Bank proposal to marketize waste disposal and an effort in California to restore racial equity in public university admissions through spatially mediated interventions.

Can Britain make it?

If Britain is to reverse the decline in its manufacturing output, it will have to learn to compete on a global scale. If labour continues to be cheaper somewhere else, there has to be continuous company development, as well as continuous professional development. This paper discusses factors affecting British manufacturing and how it can be improved including enterprise zones, added-value, indigenous development, and foreign help.

Tax Incentive Programs and Unemployment Rate

This paper answers the question: What are the effects of tax incentive programs on an area’s unemployment rate? A model is developed that describes the determination of unemployment in an enterprise zone. The estimation of unemployment rate using Census data for Ohio, taking into account the treatment effects problem, shows that such programs have a significant impact in reducing unemployment. The net impact of being an enterprise zone for a duration of one year is approximately a 3 percentage point reduction in area unemployment. The results also suggest that three to five years could be the optimum period for offering incentives.

Enterprise zones and local employment: evidence from the states’ programs

Many states respond to deteriorating economic conditions in their inner cities and rural communities by establishing geographically targeted tax incentives. In this paper, we examine the impact of several of these Enterprise Zone (EZ) programs on local employment. The results show that the EZ programs do not have a significant impact on local employment. Program impact does not depend on the monetary amount of the incentives and or on specific features of program design. These conclusions are constant across two econometric approaches to controlling for the non-random placement of zones and stand up to a wide variety of sensitivity analyses.

UK Enterprise Zones and the Attraction of Inward Investment

This paper assesses the contribution of inward investment to economic regeneration in UK Enterprise Zones using survey data from a government-sponsored national evaluation. Results indicate that by providing tax incentives and stimulating infrastructure improvements, policy attracted a group of inward investors that accounted for nearly one-third of employment in the zones at de-designation and a high proportion of new local jobs. The local impacts of inward investors are examined in terms of recruitment, linkages, growth and stability and compared with other establishments in the zones. It is concluded that inward investment can be an important driver of local economic regeneration in distressed areas when stimulated by this type of initiative, but that a mechanism is needed to limit short-distance transfer activity.

AN EVALUATION OF STATE ENTERPRISE ZONE POLICIES

Our analysis looks at the impact of state enterprise zones in six states (California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) on housing values, occupancy rates, and economic well‐being of zone residents. Zones did not lead to increased housing prices or occupancy rates, nor did they positively impact income and employment.

STRATEGIC PLANNING AND ENTERPRISE ZONES

State policy makers are concerned about costs of past policies whose benefits are often difficult to determine. Some have recommended a strategic approach to state economic policy making in order to eliminate ad hoc incentives. Lessons derived from the literature on state enterprise zones are used to assess the 1993 Federal Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community initiative. States can expand policy alternatives by fostering the growth of a marketplace of economic development ideas at the local level. Strategic plans should focus on development of competing, bottom‐up solutions, rather than packages of specific incentives.

Joining It Up Locally? Area Regeneration and Holistic Government in England

The problems of deprived neighbourhoods have been a concern for government for over 30 years. A plethora of approaches has been adopted: from central-local government partnerships (Urban Programme); to 'top down', market led solutions (Urban Development Corporations, Enterprise Zones); to the competitive 'challenge funding' (City Challenge, Single Regeneration Budget) approach. This article charts how governments have sought to address the multi-faceted challenge of area regeneration in England through management innovations during the 1990s, from the Conservative's challenge funding initiative to New Labour's emerging agenda for holistic or 'joined up' government at central and local levels.

Physical planning and the network of towns in Slovenia. How transport-logistic terminals and enterprise zones stimulate urban growth

Physical planning and the network of towns in Slovenia. How transport-logistic terminals and enterprise zones stimulate urban growth