Job Growth from Opportunity Zones
53 Pages Posted: 4 Aug 2020 Last revised: 17 Nov 2020
Date Written: November 16, 2020
Abstract
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 established a new program called Opportunity Zones (OZs) that created tax advantages for investing in businesses or real estate in a limited number of low-income Census tracts. We use a census of establishment-level data on employment to identify the effect of the program on job creation. We show that in metropolitan areas, the OZ designation increased employment growth relative to comparable tracts by between 3.0 and 4.5 percentage points and new jobs were created across many different industries and education levels. The OZ designation did not create jobs in rural areas.
Keywords: Placed-Based Policies, Opportunity Zones, Tax Incentives
JEL Classification: H73, R30, R38, G11, G18
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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