State Enterprise Zone Programs: Variations in Structure and Coverage

摘要

The authors research step was to compare the four basic measures of the enterprise zone concept to some of the significant trends occurring in the state economic development policy. The authors identified four common themes or issues: (1) change in the nature of public-private sector relations; (2) change in approaches to empowering local government; (3) debate over the targeting of (state) aid; and, (4) variation in the capacities of states to innovate. The initial part of the empirical analysis was to ask, are there any important differences in these issues which would allow us to discriminate between those states which had enacted on an EZ program from those which had not. The authors did find some distinguishing patterns of interest: states which have imposed relatively lower taxation and other revenue generating demands on their citizens in the past are the most sympathetic to this new concept; and states with existing support for small business development also take well to the concept of enterprise zones.