Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/174078 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11168
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Research on the effects of enterprise zones – especially state programs – has generally failed to find evidence of beneficial effects such job growth or poverty reduction. In contrast, Ham, Swenson, Imrohoroğlu, and Song (2011, hereafter HSIS) present evidence that state and federal enterprise zones (EZs) established in the 1990s substantially reduced poverty. However, their estimates of the effects of EZs in reducing poverty are badly overstated for two reasons. First, HSIS have a substantial error in their data on poverty rates by Census tract, which accounts for most of the estimated impact of state EZs that they find. Second, their estimates of the effects of federal Empowerment Zones (EMPZs) and Enterprise Communities (ENTCs) appear to be strongly influenced by selection of areas that experienced negative shocks. An estimator based on comparing federally designated zones to more-comparable areas that applied for and were rejected as zones, or became zones in the future, yields much smaller estimates than those in HSIS. And the large poverty-reduction effects of ENTCs that HSIS found are largely spurious – not surprisingly, given that ENTCs received meager benefits and had no hiring credits.
Subjects: 
enterprise zones
poverty
JEL: 
J23
J38
R12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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