Economic Development

States spend billions of dollars a year on economic development initiatives that are meant to encourage businesses to create or retain jobs and make investments. The Pew Charitable Trusts studies the policies and practices that states have used to generate much-needed analyses about the costs and economic returns of tax incentives. Pew also examines how states can better direct economic development to communities in need. Based on this research, Pew works with state leaders to:

• Make a plan to evaluate the results of all major incentives on a regular schedule and measure the impact of those programs using high-quality evaluations.
• Build state-level capacity to analyze incentives.
• Inform policy choices with evaluation findings to improve the effectiveness of tax incentives.