economic development

Since 2005, North Carolina has provided over $404 million in subsidies (tax credits and grant payments) to film production companies. The thinking is that incentivizing film productions grows an industry,…

Economic impact studies are common. They usually are invoked by government or special interest groups to demonstrate how a particular spending or tax incentive policy will affect variables such as…

The budget standoff in North Carolina is generating national attention, which focuses on the debate over Medicaid expansion. But there’s another policy standoff in Raleigh, and it’s interesting not just…

Anything done a first time becomes easier to do a second time, for better and for worse. This understanding is why parents force children to try new foods before refusing…

Gov. Roy Cooper opposes corporate tax cuts and giveaways. At least publicly. In his 2017 State of the State address, he made them sound like an occult ritual: “We…

A bill filed in the General Assembly would bring back North Carolina’s unaccountable film tax incentives. The incentives had sunset in 2014 and been replaced by a grant program, which…

Recently, I was researching on an economic modeling company called Regional Economic Modeling, Inc., better known as REMI. REMI is one of several companies that produce economic models used by…

Now and then you’ll encounter a public servant actually questioning the bad numbers propping up a bad policy proposal, and it’s as refreshing as, well, any scene from a lite…

Have you ever seen the movie “Dave”? It’s a warm-hearted little comedy from 1993 about a man (Dave, played by Kevin Kline) who runs a temporary employment agency and has…

When are special interest subsidies not just special interest subsidies? When the special interests receiving the subsidies hire a consultant to do an economic impact study. And how often does…