Stephen B. Billings

Do Enterprise Zones Work? An Analysis at the Borders

This article analyzes Enterprise Zones in Colorado to study the relationship between geographically targeted tax credits and the location of new businesses and jobs. Enterprise Zone (EZ) programs provide tax incentives for investment and job creation in economically lagging regions. While most states have EZ programs, past program evaluations have found a mixture of effectiveness. This research improves on existing literature by utilizing both establishment-level data and a border effects methodology (1) to control for unobservables that influence the self-selection of EZ regions and (2) to highlight EZ impacts across different industries. Results find that while EZ fiscal incentives have no effect on where new establishments locate in Colorado, they do increase the number of employees hired. Industry results highlight the heterogeneity of tax credit impacts within the EZ Program. Results are robust to a variety of specifications for land-use controls and in comparison to a propensity score matching model.

Should cities go for the gold? The long-term impacts of hosting the Olympics.

The Summer Olympics bring hundreds of thousands of visitors and generate upward of

THE EFFECTS OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND OPENING OF LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT STATIONS ON NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME

10 billion in spending for the host city. This large influx of tourism dollars is only part of the overall impact of hosting the Olympic Games. In order to host the visitors and sporting events, cities must make sizable investments in infrastructure such as airports, arenas, and highways. Additionally, the publicity and international exposure of a host city may benefit international trade and capital flows. Proponents argue that this investment will pay off through increased economic growth, but research confirming these claims is lacking. This paper examines whether hosting an Olympiad improves a citys long‐term growth. In order to control for the self‐selection of cities that host Olympic Games, this paper matches Olympic host cities with cities that were finalists for the Olympic Games, but were not selected by the International Olympic Committee. A difference‐in‐difference estimator examines post‐Olympic impacts for host cities between 1950 and 2005. Regression results provide no long‐term impacts of hosting an Olympics on two measures of population, real Gross Domestic Product per capita and trade openness.

Financing Residential Development with Special Districts

ABSTRACT: The debate over crime and rail transit focuses on whether such investments “breed” criminal activities with new targets of opportunity or transport crime from the inner city to the suburbs. Yet, little empirical evidence exists on whether new rail transit actually does lead to increased crime rates around stations. In order to study this question, we test the relationship between crime and rail transit with the 2007 opening of the Charlotte light rail line. We use Geographical Information Systems software and micro-level data on reported crimes to generate measures of criminal activity in and around light rail transit (LRT) stations. We then implement a quasi-experimental before-and-after methodology using two alternate transit corridors to control for differences between neighborhoods that contain LRT stations and other neighborhoods. We find light rail does not actually increase crime around stations. Instead, we see a decrease in property crimes once the station locations are announced, which remains relatively stable after the light rail begins operating.

Sport Events and Criminal Activity: A Spatial Analysis

This paper empirically examines the extent to which the property tax liability created by financing residential infrastructure using special district bonds is capitalized in house prices. We compare house prices for single‐family detached homes built within development districts to similar properties located outside development districts. Our hedonic specification includes the usual housing characteristics and controls for the influence of spatial attributes using Census Block Group “neighborhood” fixed effects. The preferred empirical specification restricts the data to neighborhoods that have numerous sales of recently constructed single‐family detached homes located both within and outside development districts. The empirical results indicate that house prices for homes located within development districts are lower than house prices for similar homes located outside of development districts, but the amount of property tax capitalization is significantly less than full. Results depend on our Generalized Methods of Moments estimator, which instruments property tax rates using the characteristics of development districts. We identify valid instruments by restricting transactions to properties located in rapidly growing suburban developments.

The Value of a Healthy Home: Lead Paint Remediation and Housing Values

This chapter investigates spatial crime patterns associated with events taking place in two downtown venues in Charlotte, NC: an open-air football stadium and an enclosed multipurpose arena. The evidence suggests neither venue’s events contribute to an overall increase in reported total, property, or violent crimes in the city. However, both venues experience an increase in crimes within one-half mile from the venue on event days relative to nonevent days. For the arena, violent crimes increase up to a mile away while property crimes decrease for up to 2 miles away on event days compared to nonevent days. For the stadium, violent crimes decrease up to 2 miles away while property crimes increase up to 1 mile away on event days compared to nonevent days. Combined, the evidence suggests that events in these two arenas shift the pattern of reported crime, but in different ways. The results help inform public safety concerns during events and contribute to the debate over public subsidies for venues.

The Housing and Educational Consequences of the School Choice Provisions of NCLB: Evidence from Charlotte, NC

The presence of lead paint significantly impairs cognitive and behavioral development, yet little is known about the value to households of avoiding this residence-specific environmental health risk. In this paper, we estimate the benefits of lead-paint remediation on housing prices. Using data on all homes that applied to a HUD-funded program in Charlotte, North Carolina, we adopt a difference-in-differences estimator that compares values among remediated properties with those for which an inspection does not identify a lead paint hazard. Results indicate large returns for public and private investment in remediation with each

Gentrification and Failing Schools: The Unintended Consequences of School Choice under NCLB

1 spent on lead remediation generating

Parental Arrest and Incarceration: How Does it Impact the Children?

2.60 in benefits as well as a reduction in residential turnover.

Estimating the value of a new transit option

We examine the housing market, residential mobility, and academic performance changes that occur soon after a school fails to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) (for the second time) in the Charlotte, NC school district. Charlotte is a school district with substantial opportunities for school choice and a number of oversubscribed, high quality schools. To comply with the 2002 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, students within the attendance zone of Title 1 schools that fail to meet AYP are given an advantage in the lotteries for oversubscribed schools. That advantage may create an incentive for households with strong preferences for school choice and/or school quality to move into the attendance zones of failing schools in order to improve their likelihood of being admitted into high performing, oversubscribed schools. Consistent with that notion, we find that housing prices and the incomes of new home-buyers rise in the highest quality neighborhoods within attendance zones of failing schools in comparison to trends in nearby neighborhoods just outside of the attendance zone. We also find that residential mobility decreases while the probability of attending a non-assigned traditional school or magnet school increases in these high quality neighborhoods. Further analysis reveals that the effect of failing designation on non-assigned school attendance is driven largely by the school choice decisions of new residents who are most likely to exploit the school choice advantages offered by a second failure to achieve AYP.