City Talks: Tim Bartik on making sense of incentives

Financial incentives are often used by policymakers to attract big businesses to locate in a place and deliver jobs and growth.

But do they actually make any difference? 

Economic development and incentives expert Tim Bartik joins Andrew Carter to debunk the biggest assumptions made by policymakers in this field, revealing that 75% of the time, the same number of jobs would have been created without any incentives at all.

Tim and Andrew cover recent high-profile cases such as Amazon’s much-criticised plans for the location of its second headquarters in Virginia and New York City and Wisconsin’s $4 billion state and local tax incentives to Foxxconn in the promise of 13,000 new jobs that never materialised. 

Tim reveals the opportunity costs, spillovers and leakages that offering a high cash-per-job price tag create, and instead sets out a better way to achieve inclusive local economic growth and good jobs for all.

Background reading:

• Making Sense of Incentives: Taming Business Incentives to Promote Prosperity