This paper studies the effects of job creation tax credits (JCTCs) enacted by U.S. states between 1990 and 2007 to gain insights about fiscal foresight (alterations of current behavior by forwardlooking agents in anticipation of future policy changes). Nearly half of the states adopted JCTCs...

This paper reviews selected fiscal policy initiatives undertaken by US states to encourage job creation and innovation. We begin with a discussion of some general considerations about the design of tax policies summarized in a tax policy design table. Four policies are reviewed: job creation tax...

We study the conditions under which fiscal foresight – forward-looking agents anticipating future policy changes – results in perverse economic behavior through unintended intertemporal tradeoffs. Somewhat surprisingly, fiscal foresight by itself is far from sufficient for policy-induced...

We evaluate the effects of state-provided financial incentives for biotech companies, which are part of a growing trend of placed-based policies designed to spur innovation clusters. We estimate that the adoption of subsidies for biotech employers by a state raises the number of star biotech...

We look at disaggregated imports of various types of equipment to make inferences oncross-country differences in the composition of equipment investment. We make threecontributions. First, we document strikingly large differences in investment composition.Second, we explain the differences as...

Though the U.S. federal investment tax credit (ITC) was permanently repealed in 1986, state-level ITCs have proliferated over the last few decades. Are these tax incentives effective in increasing investment within the state? How much of this increase is due to investment drawn away from other...