Can Tax Breaks Beat Geography? Lessons from the French Enterprise Zone Experience

Journal article: This paper shows that urban geography matters to the effectiveness of place-based policies, using the French enterprise zone program as a case study. Whereas this program created more jobs in spatially integrated neighborhoods, its impact on local wages was only visible in the more isolated ones. In addition, a focus on the average impact of the program would lead to the conclusion that it mostly succeeded in displacing preexisting firms, but a lower level of spatial isolation was a clear determinant of the decision to create new firms from scratch.

Author(s)

Anthony Briant, Miren Lafourcade, Benoît Schmutz

Journal
  • American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
Date of publication
  • 2015
Keywords JEL
H.H2.H25 H.H3.H32 I.I3.I32 R.R3.R32 R.R3.R38
Keywords
  • Business Taxes
Pages
  • 88-124
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 7