Several reports have been developed to summarize programs, policies and events that highlight state economic development activity:
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The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act: What State Leaders Should Know
What the New Federal Housing Law Means for State Economic Development Housing has evolved from a quality-of-life issue to a core economic development challenge. State leaders underscored this reality at SEDE’s fall meeting in New York, noting that companies are increasingly unwilling to commit to locations where their workforce cannot afford to live nearby. The…
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Whitepaper: Child Care as Economic Infrastructure
Executive Summary Child care determines whether parents can work. For state economic development leaders, that makes it economic infrastructure, not a social program, because inadequate access slows growth by shrinking the available labor force. States are responding with a widening menu of tools. Most lower the price families pay. A few expand the supply of…
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Smart Incentives: Incentives for Entrepreneurial Firms
This report analyzes state and local incentives for entrepreneurial firms and offers guidance for offering them. It addresses the definitional problem that “entrepreneurial firm” and “incentive” are used inconsistently, then builds a typology: the most common incentive types are financial, fiscal, and services, generally divided between two targets — small business entrepreneurs and innovation- or…
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Ellen Harpel, Randall Bauer, and Joe Buckson: Incentives Best Practices
This brief summarizes ten best practices the PFM and Smart Incentives team identified from dozens of state incentive evaluations conducted since 2020. The practices: incentives should be targeted (for example, to exporters or high-impact companies); discretionary, usually through an application process; structured to leverage private capital at several multiples of the public investment; concentrated in…
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Smart Incentives: Incentives that Work: A guide for designing and managing effective programs
This guide addresses whether incentives work, concluding that they influence business decisions but are not solely responsible for them, and that they generate positive outcomes only with sound program design and implementation, supported by project monitoring and reporting. It presents the features evaluations associate with effective programs, including targeting, discretion, leveraging significant private capital, limited…
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Smart Incentives: Incentives 101 – The Essential Concepts
This presentation defines business incentives three ways: programs designed to influence business investment behavior, taxpayer-financed programs that support individual businesses, and offerings that alter, reward, or subsidize an action or behavior. It identifies six incentive types — financial, tax, regulatory, workforce, site- or zone-based, and services — and notes that the number of state incentive…
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Urban Institute: How Has Federal Spending on Place-Based Programs Changed Over Time?
Between 2010 and 2024, federal spending on the country’s largest recurring place-based programs climbed from roughly $44.1 billion to $60.7 billion in inflation-adjusted terms—yet direct program spending fell over that same span. Urban Institute’s report traces this shift across 13 programs and finds that tax expenditures like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and Opportunity Zones…
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CREC Blog: What Communities Should Know About Data Centers
The race to build data centers is reshaping local economies faster than almost any other real estate trend. From 2023 to 2024, data center construction spending increased by 70%, more than triple the rate of any other property type. The sector is drawing billions in venture capital and now consumes up to eight percent of…
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SEDE Spring Meeting: What’s on the Minds of State Economic Development Leaders?
The State Economic Development Executives Network (SEDE) recently gathered alongside the SelectUSA Investment Summit for a half-day meeting of state economic development leaders from across the country. The conversation covered a lot of ground — and reflected just how much the landscape has shifted for states trying to attract investment, develop talent, and make the…
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10 Ways States Can Respond to Uncertain Federal Tariff Policies
Written for the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, in association with the SEDE Network Abstract: Federal tariff volatility is increasing uncertainty in investment decisions, supply chains, and workforce demand. Firms are delaying or even halting projects, restructuring sourcing, and requiring higher returns to justify increased risk. While States cannot control federal policy, they can control…