| In response to the deteriorating condition of many U.S. urban areas, a common policy initiative has been the provision of tax and other business incentives aimed at encouraging businesses to relocate to (or avoid leaving) economically depressed areas. These types of initiatives, referred to as “enterprise zones” (EZs), were initiated autonomously by a number of states that implemented EZ programs with heterogeneous policy features. This dissertation investigates what can be learned regarding the impact of different EZ policy features on the economic activity (measured by employment, value of shipments, capital expenditures and earnings) of the communities targeted by the intervention.; As the evaluation of geographically-targeted economic development programs, such as the state EZs, poses challenges to the analysis that, to some extent, are not specifically addressed by the existing econometric literature, the first part of this dissertation is devoted to identifying and in some cases developing a variety of non-experimental estimators. The proposed estimators are then grouped and sorted out in a decision tree algorithm that provides guidance to select the most appropriate methodology for the analysis.; In the remaining parts of this dissertation, state EZ programs are analyzed by operationalyzing both the heterogeneity of the specific policy implementation features and the fact that zones might target different types of establishments. Looking at the overall impact of EZ programs on zones' economic activity, thus, should be interpreted as assessing the averaging result of different policies that may potentially have different impacts on different types of establishments. The analysis developed in this dissertation found no evidence of an averaging positive impact of EZ programs on zone employment and economic activity. (Abstract shortened by UMI.); *The work that provides the basis for this dissertation was supported by funding under the Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and under the Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant from the Geography and Regional Science Program: National Science Foundation. The substance and the findings of this work are dedicated to the public. The author is solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this dissertation. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government or of the National Science Foundation. |
