This paper analyzes Enterprise Zones in Colorado in order to study the relationship between geographically targeted tax credits and the location of new businesses and jobs. Enterprise Zone (EZ) programs provide tax incentives for investment and job creation in economically lagging regions. While...

This paper uses Nebraska sales tax data to estimate the magnitude of cross-border shopping in response to travel cost when a local sales tax changes. The results indicate that a one percent increase in a local sales tax induces cross-border shopping by 4.81 percent in a city that has an adjacent...

Using a natural experiment from Germany, we show that temporary place-based subsidies generate persistent effects on economic density. We identify employment and capital formation as main channels for higher income per square kilometer. As the spatial regression discontinuity design allows us to...

In an effort to improve diet and health outcomes, policymakers have increasingly turned to supply-side subsidies aimed at encouraging investment by supermarkets and other food retailers in low-income areas. This paper examines whether the U.S. federal government’s New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC)...

Place-based policies commonly target underperforming areas, such as deteriorating downtown business districts and disadvantaged regions. Principal examples include enterprise zones, European Union Structural Funds, and industrial cluster policies. Place-based policies are rationalized by various...

"Lines" in the tax system are demarcations of goods into different tax rate categories; tax rates may change discontinuously at a line. Geographic borders are a specific example of a line in the tax system. Using the example of geographic borders, I demonstrate how the permeability of the line...

Borders create a discontinuous tax treatment of retail sales. In a Nash game, equilibrium local tax rates will be higher on the low-tax side of a border. Taxes will decrease from the nearest high-tax border and increase from the nearest low-tax border. Using driving time from state borders and...

We investigate the impact of a set of place-based subsidies introduced in Turkey in 2012. Using firm-level balance-sheet data along with data on the domestic production network, we first assess the policy’s direct and indirect impacts. We find an increase in economic activity in...

We examine the consequences of federal corporate tax enforcement for local business activity. U.S. corporate tax return audits have declined significantly in recent years, and recent policies target expanding the number of tax return audits to improve tax revenues. However, tax audits can impose...