The Rise of the Entrepreneurial State: State and Local Economic Development Policies in the United States. By Peter K. Eisinger. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. 336p. $40.00 cloth, $17.50 paper. - The Politics of Plant Closings. By John Portz. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990. 214p. $29.95 cloth, $12.95 paper.

The growth machine (GM) perspective has long guided urban research. Our study provides a new extension of this perspective, focusing on local business actors’ influence on communities across the United States. We question whether GM–oriented business actors remain widely associated with contemporary local economic development policies, and further, whether these actors influence the use of limited–government austerity policies. Conceptually, we extend the GM framework by bringing it into dialogue with the literature on urban austerity policy. The analysis draws from the urban–quantitative tradition of large–sample studies and assesses localities across the nation using the empirical case of county governments. We find local real estate owners, utilities, and other business actors broadly influence U.S. localities’ economic development policies. We also find some evidence that these actors’ influences in local governance are related to the use of such cutback policies as hiring freezes, capping of social services, expenditure cutbacks, and sale of public assets. Local Chambers of Commerce are particularly associated with cutback policies. Overall, the findings suggest that where local GM actors are influential, communities are more likely to adopt business–oriented economic development policies, limit the growth of social services for the less affluent, and scale–down the public sector.

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Explaining the Extent of Local Economic Development Activity: Evidence from Canadian Cities

Environment and Planning C Government and Policy ◽

10.1068/c100105 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 105-120 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

L A Reese

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Economic Development ◽

Local Economic Development ◽

The United States ◽

Fiscal Health ◽

Development Activity ◽

Development Policies

This paper is an attempt to explain economic development policies in Canadian cities by examining local fiscal health, intercity competition for development, the extent of professionalism in the economic development arena, and local governmental structure. Although these factors have been found to affect local economic development practices in the United States, the data presented here indicate that this is not the case in Canada. Only the amount of planning in economic development, the extent of citizen input, the presence of ward-based elections, and the extent to which decisions are left to professionals appear to influence economic development techniques practised in a city.

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Government and Fiscal Policy in American Economic History

The Oxford Handbook of American Economic History, vol. 2 ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190882624.013.33 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 194-224

Author(s):

John Joseph Wallis

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Economic Development ◽

Economic History ◽

Local Governments ◽

Property Tax ◽

The United States ◽

State Governments ◽

Payroll Taxes ◽

The Third ◽

State And Local

Over the last 225 years, government finances in the United States have gone through three distinct stages. In the first stage, 1790–1850, state governments actively pursued policies to promote economic development and financed them from revenues from state investments. In the second, 1850–1930, local governments became the most important level of government, as measured by revenues and expenditures, and revenues shifted toward the property tax. In the third period, 1930 to the present, the national government became the most active and largest level of government, financed through income and payroll taxes, and developed an extensive network of grants to state and local governments. The chapter tracks the changes in sources of revenues and purpose of expenditures, with specific attention paid to military spending over the entire period.

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