There is a large literature examining the macroeconomic effects of state economic development incentives on employment, income, tax revenue, and growth. At best, these incentives are found to be weakly effective at job creation, but inefficient due to the distortions, secondary effects, and increased rent-seeking they encourage, with little public accountability. Given the evidence on their inefficiency, what explains their continued popularity? We find that large development incentives create substantial benefits for incumbent politicians in the form of both higher campaign contributions (particularly from business, labor, and construction sectors) and higher margins of victory at election time. Thus, political rent extraction may be the best explanation for the continued existence and popularity of these relatively ineffective incentive programs in states.

中文翻译：

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国家经济发展激励的政治经济学：以榨取租金为例

有大量文献研究了国家经济发展激励措施对就业、收入、税收和增长的宏观经济影响。人们发现，这些激励措施充其量在创造就业方面效果较弱，但由于其所鼓励的扭曲、次级效应和寻租增加而效率低下，而且几乎没有公共责任。鉴于它们效率低下的证据，如何解释它们持续受欢迎的原因？我们发现，大规模的发展激励措施可以为现任政治家带来巨大的好处，其形式包括更高的竞选捐款（特别是来自商业、劳工和建筑部门的捐款）和选举时更高的获胜幅度。因此，政治租金抽取可能是这些相对无效的激励计划在各州继续存在和流行的最佳解释。