On November 17, 2017, the Murphy Institute will present a conference entitled Tax Incentives for State, Local, and International Economic Development in coordination with the American Tax Policy Institute (ATPI). This unique collaboration will serve as ATPI’s annual fall conference and will be held at the D.C. office of the noted law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. The event will bring together tax policy experts from various sectors, including academia and research, central banking, government, accounting, philanthropy, consulting, and law.
The conference will broadly focus on whether or not the billions of dollars that states spend annually on tax holidays, investment credits, and other incentives actually accomplish what they aim to do: spur economic development. Discussants will consider how effectively tax incentives promote investment and create jobs, enumerate what these policies cost, and workshop alternative methods of increasing productivity. By examining tax policy not just at the international and state level but also at the local level, the conference participants hope to identify what these entities might learn from each other’s policies, ideally ascertaining best practices that will benefit all taxpayers.
The Murphy Institute’s Executive Director, Steven M. Sheffrin, will moderate the opening panel on state and local tax incentives in the United States. Panelists will include Tulane Assistant Professor of Economics, Patrick Button, who will discuss the policy implications of film industry tax incentives. Button and Sheffrin will be joined by scholars from the W.E. Upjohn Institute and Georgia State University, Timothy Bartik and Carlianne Patrick.
Later in the day, Kimberly Clausing of Reed College will moderate a panel discussion on international tax incentives and competition and Jeff Chapman, of the Pew Charitable Trust, will moderate a roundtable on deploying evidence-based tax incentive policy. The day’s events will close with a panel moderated by Manal Corwin of KPMG.
Those interested in attending may register for the conference here.
