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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract This paper provides new empirical assessment on the efficiency of locally-targeted tax incentives in revitalizing distressed areas. We focus on the first generation of the French "Enterprise Zone" intiative, implemented in 1997 in continental France. We use new georeferenced panel data at the firm level over a twelve-year period. The zone designation process suggests two empirical strategies: difference-in-difference regressions with subclassification on the propensity score and regression discontinuity design. Both methods yield similar results. We highlight a strong positive impact of the Entreprise Zone policy on employment and business location during the first years of the policy. However, this favourable assessment has to be moderated because it seems mostly due to firms that are less prone to stimulate either local employment or economic activities. In addition, after some years, the early positive results are reduced as the increase in business locations is partially offset by more frequent business discontinuations. Terms of use: Documents inKeywords: Enterprise Zones, Local Employment, Propensity Score Matching, Evaluation. JEL: C23, H71, R5 * We thank participants of INSEE and CREST seminars as well as French Applied Microeconomics Conference (Souse, 2011, June) and Conference on Public Policies, Labour and Regional economics (Metz, 2011, June). We thank more specifically Didier Blanchet, Anthony Briant, Xavier D'Haulfoeuille and Laurent Gobillon for useful comments and discussions. Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and not of any institution.† INSEE-CREST, pauline.givord@insee.fr ‡ DARES, simon.quantin@travail.gouv.fr § INSEE-SciencesPo.-CREST, corentin.trevien@insee.fr 1 Titre français: Des incitations fiscales attractives : une évaluation de long terme de la première génération des Zones Franches Urbaines Abstract Cette étude propose de nouvelles estimations empiriques de l'efficacité des incitations fiscales ciblées pour revitaliser des territoires désavantagés. Nous nous concentrons sur la première génération des ZFU, mise en place en 1997 en France métropolitaine. Nous utilisons un panel de données géolocalisées au niveau entreprise sur une période de 12 ans. Le mode de désignation des zones suggère deux straté-gies empiriques : une méthode de différences de différences avec une classification sur le score de propension et des régressions sur discontinuités. Les deux méthodes donnent des résultats proc...

We take advantage of the expansion of the French High‐speed Rail to study the impact of decreases in communication costs in the form of lower travel times between headquarters and affiliated plants of corporate groups. We show that such shocks foster the functional specialisation of remote affiliates on their production activities. Support activities shrink because of the transfer of high‐skilled managers to headquarters. These organisational rationalisations have a significant but small impact on overall profit. Our results hold across all industries but are strongest in services where the information to be transmitted across sites is arguably softer.

We document the impact of travel time between headquarters and affiliates of geographically dispersed corporate groups on the management of such business organizations. Theory suggests that the easier circulation of managers might facilitate the transmission of information between production plants and headquarters, thus fostering growth and functional specialization (on production activities) at remote affiliates and decreasing operational costs at the group level. We test these predictions on the population of French corporate groups, using the expansion of the High Speed Rail network as a shock on internal travel times. We estimate that HSR induced the creation of one production job for the average affiliate in the service industries (against 0.2 job in retail, trade or manufacturing industries), and the shift of around one managerial job from affiliate to HQ. At the group level, descriptive regressions suggest that the impact on the operational profit margin is around 0.5 percentage points in most industries. 4