State and local tax breaks to lure companies have tripled since 1990, but they produce few economic benefits

New Jersey’s Teflon Tax Abuse: Companies get needless credits, and legislators look the other way. WSJ editorial. Excerpt:

"A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research in January by Columbia’s Cailin Slattery and Princeton’s Owen Zidar finds that state and local tax breaks to lure companies have tripled since 1990, but they produce few economic benefits.

Instead of a rare tool to draw a major employer, tax subsidies have become the main economic strategy for many states. “Incentives amounted to nearly 40% of state corporate tax revenues for the typical state,” the study found. Other taxpayers bear the burden lifted from these favored businesses, the economists found, yet there’s “limited evidence that these subsidized firms have employment spillovers in the local economy.”"