economic development

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 The incentives had sunset in 2014 and been replaced by a grant program, which…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…

Senate Bill 820, which skyrockets tax incentives for “big boys with deep pockets,” rampaged through the North Carolina General Assembly last week like a General Patton simile.

A bill introduced this week in the North Carolina Senate would choose “economic development” policies over economic growth policies. It’s not a good choice if the aim is actually to…