Business Incentives for Local Economic Development

Maša Trinajstić, Marinela Krstinić Nižić and Nada Denona Bogović
Additional contact information
Maša Trinajstić: Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, University of Rijeka, Primorska 46, 51410 Opatija, Croatia
Marinela Krstinić Nižić: Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management, University of Rijeka, Primorska 46, 51410 Opatija, Croatia
Nada Denona Bogović: Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Rijeka, Ivana Filipovića 4, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia

Economies, 2022, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-12

Abstract: The main role of local development policy is to create a favorable business environment and new jobs, thus contributing to economic development. Creating a positive business environment to act as a pull factor for new businesses is of great importance, because entrepreneurship conduces to the rise in the supply of goods and to an increase in citizens’ income and revenues of local budgets. This paper therefore examines the main goals of economic development in the towns and municipalities of the Republic of Croatia, as well as the tools used by local governments to encourage entrepreneurship and new businesses. Using a questionnaire, mayors and deputies of towns and municipalities were surveyed, and the sample covered 131 towns and municipalities. The research methodology included a descriptive analysis and the Kruskal–Wallis test. The results indicate that improving the quality of life of the residents, creating new jobs, and retaining the residents in the town or municipality were identified as the most important goals of economic development. To encourage entrepreneurship and new jobs, towns and municipalities most often simplify regulations, reduce local taxes, and introduce various benefits and incentives. The contribution of the paper is manifested in providing useful guidance to local governments to improve the business environment.

Keywords: local economic development; entrepreneurship; business environment; business incentives; residents’ quality of life; Croatia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E F I J O Q (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/10/6/135/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/10/6/135/ (text/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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:10:y:2022:i:6:p:135-:d:834229

Access Statistics for this article

Economies is currently edited by Ms. Hongyan Zhang

More articles in Economies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().