Do Enterprise Zones Create Jobs? Evidence from California's Enterprise Zone Program

David Neumark () and Jed Kolko ()

No 14530, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We use new establishment-level data and geographic mapping methods to improve upon evaluations of the effectiveness of state enterprise zones, focusing on California’s program. Because zone boundaries do not follow census tracts or zip codes, we created digitized maps of original zone boundaries and later expansions. We combine these maps with geocoded observations on most businesses located in California. The evidence indicates that enterprise zones do not increase employment. We also find no shift of employment toward the lower-wage workers or manufacturing sector targeted by enterprise zone incentives. We conclude that the program is ineffective in achieving its primary goals.

JEL-codes: H25 H73 J23 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-lab and nep-ure
Date: 2008-12
Note: LS PE
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14530.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14530

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14530
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Address: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().