A new study from the University of Southern California finds that corporate tax incentives paid to the entertainment industry don’t generate the jobs and economic growth intended.
The study, ”Do State Corporate Tax Incentives Create Jobs? Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Entertainment Industry,” analyzed the employment impact of motion picture incentive programs for the five states that currently spend the most on MPI incentives. The states include New York, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Connecticut, which together account for about 77% of all MPI expenditures.
The researchers found no significant contribution to job growth as a result of MPIs in the five most highly incentivized states, and their work builds on findings from a 2016 study that looked more broadly at MPI-generated jobs averaged across all 50 states.
“This new study should put to rest any notion that motion picture tax incentives may work in some states but not others,” says the study’s lead author Michael Thom, an associate professor at the USC school of public policy. “The states investing the most in incentives are not getting the return on investment taxpayers deserve, pure and simple.”
The findings come on the heels of a March 2019 analysis for LED citing similar concerns.
