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Getting What You Pay For: The Case of Southern Economic Development

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  • Rork, Jonathan C.

Abstract

For the past fifty years, states of the American South have been competing with one another in order to recruit businesses to locate within their borders. While previous research has focused on assessing the short-term success of a tax-based recruitment plan, this paper addresses an important gap in the literature by looking at the long-term consequences that such a development policy can impose on a state’s industrial structure. By incorporating the role of firm mobility, this paper demonstrates that at the state level, the effect of lowering the corporate income tax on the factor intensity of a state’s manufacturing industries is theoretically ambiguous because it is dependent on the type of firm that finds it easier to move. Using historical data from 1957-1992 and a dynamic, partial adjustment model, this paper establishes an empirical link between low corporate tax rates and labor-intensive manufacturing industries, thereby suggesting that a low-tax policy is encouraging the immigration of footloose, laborintensive firms. Moreover, the paper finds that the labor used tends to be of an unskilled (production) nature, even as the national trend is to substitute away from unskilled labor into skilled labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Rork, Jonathan C., 2005. "Getting What You Pay For: The Case of Southern Economic Development," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 35(2), pages 1-17.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:jrapmc:132308
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.132308
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Conway, Karen Smith & Rork, Jonathan C., 2012. "The Genesis of Senior Income Tax Breaks," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 65(4), pages 1043-1068, December.
    2. Li Yu & Georgeanne M. Artz, 2019. "Does rural entrepreneurship pay?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 647-668, October.
    3. repec:rre:publsh:v:40:y:2010:i:2:p:197-226 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Terry L. Besser & Nicholas Recker & Matthew Parker, 2009. "The Impact of New Employers From the Outside, the Growth of Local Capitalism, and New Amenities on the Social and Economic Welfare of Small Towns," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 23(4), pages 306-316, November.

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