What is the Impact of Opportunity Zones on Employment Outcomes?

Atkins, Rachel; Hernandez-Lagos, Pablo; Jara-Figueroa, Cristian; Seamans, Robert

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3673986

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Some evidence points to political favoritism in governors' zone selections (Alm et al, 2021;Frank et al, 2020;Eldar and Garber, 2020), but there is also evidence indicating that governors largely rubber-stamped recommendations for zone designations that came from mayors (Duarte et al, 2020). Several papers have also highlighted that, at least along some dimensions, tracts that were designated as Opportunity Zones were on different trajectories than tracts eligible but not designated (Frank et al, 2020;Atkins et al, 2021) -consistent with our evidence.…”

Section: The Opportunity Zone Programsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Other recent studies have found mixed evidence on the effects of Opportunity Zones on labor markets. While Atkins et al (2021) document limited effects of zone designation on job postings, Arefeva et al (2021) find that zone designation is associated with significant job growth. Evidence of job growth in Opportunity Zones does not necessarily contradict our results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 In recent work, Arefeva et al (2021) leverage establishment-level data (the Your-economy Time Series) and find that Opportunity Zone designation increased employment growth relative to comparable (eligible, but not chosen) tracts significantly (by 3.0 to 4.5 percentage points), with the growth spread across industries. Atkins et al (2021) study Opportunity Zone effects on job postings (from Burning Glass) by zip code, distinguished by whether the zip code contains at least one Opportunity Zone tract or not.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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JUE Insight: The Impacts of Opportunity Zones on Zone Residents

Freedman¹,

Khanna²,

Neumark³

2021

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The Opportunity Zone program, created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, was designed to encourage investment in distressed communities across the U.S. We examine the early impacts (up to one-and-a-half years after enactment) of the Opportunity Zone program on residents of targeted areas. We leverage restricted-access microdata from the American Community Survey and employ a matching approach to estimate causal reduced-form effects of the program. Our results point to little or no evidence of positive effects of the Opportunity Zone program on the employment, earnings, or poverty of zone residents.

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Section: The Opportunity Zone Programsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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JUE Insight: The Impacts of Opportunity Zones on Zone Residents

Freedman¹,

Khanna²,

Neumark³

2021

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“…Our study relates to several contemporaneous studies that also explore the economic impact from OZ legislation. One strand of the emerging literature suggests only limited effects from OZ legislation on employment, earnings, or poverty (Atkins et al., 2021; Freedman et al., 2021), or that any OZ employment gains occur only in metropolitan areas (Arefeva et al., 2021). As we discuss in more detail later, another thread of OZ research focuses on impacts in real estate markets, finding trivial effects on housing prices (Chen et al., 2020), or positive impacts but with no apparent change to transaction volume (Alm et al., 2021b; Bekkerman et al., 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cherry‐picking industrial properties in opportunity zones

Wiley

Nguyen

2022

Real Estate Economics

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We examine the impact on industrial property prices following the launch of US opportunity zones-a locationbased tax incentive program intended to attract investment into low-income communities. Using a national sample of commercial real estate transactions, we document significantly higher transaction premiums, when matched with comparable transactions in eligible tracts that were not included in the program. Consistent with development options that are incentivized by the program, we find that premiums are concentrated at properties with the largest amounts of excess land available, and we observe no evidence of spillover effects to properties that do not possess similar optionality. Among the designated opportunity zones, significant transaction premiums appear in areas that previously demonstrate high employment and population growth. Overall, we do not find evidence to suggest that the aggregate share of commercial real estate transaction volume to opportunity zones has increased following the legislation.

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“…There is also mixed evidence on potential employment benefits; seeArefeva et al (2021);Atkins et al (2020);Freedman et al (2021).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

JUE Insight: The (Non-)Effect of Opportunity Zones on Housing Prices

Chen,

Glaeser,

Wessel

2022

Preprint

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Will the Opportunity Zones (OZ) program, America's largest new place-based policy in decades, generate neighborhood change? We compare single-family housing price growth in OZs with price growth in areas that were eligible but not included in the program. We also compare OZs to their nearest geographic neighbors. Our most credible estimates rule out price impacts greater than 0.5 percentage points with 95% confidence, suggesting that, so far, home buyers don't believe that this subsidy will generate major neighborhood change. OZ status reduces prices in areas with little employment, perhaps because buyers think that subsidizing new investment will increase housing supply. Mixed evidence suggests that OZs may have increased residential permitting.

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What is the Impact of Opportunity Zones on Employment Outcomes?

Cited by 12 publications

References 31 publications

JUE Insight: The Impacts of Opportunity Zones on Zone Residents

JUE Insight: The Impacts of Opportunity Zones on Zone Residents

Cherry‐picking industrial properties in opportunity zones

JUE Insight: The (Non-)Effect of Opportunity Zones on Housing Prices

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