Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-2025
Keywords
Agglomeration spillovers, Place-based policy, Quasi-experiment, Runner-up design, Casinos, Spatial model
Abstract
One rationale for place-based policy is that local development produces positive productivity spillovers. We examine the employment spillovers from a large local development project: opening a casino. Comparing employment in neighborhoods that won a casino license to runner-up neighborhoods that narrowly lost, we find that casinos create jobs in their immediate vicinity. However, we estimate net job losses overall when considering the broader neighborhood. Employment gains concentrate in the leisure and hospitality industry, suggesting spillovers are industry-specific or are driven by demand-side forces like trip-chaining. We develop theory to show that our estimates imply a rapid spatial decay of productivity spillovers.
Citation
Ari Anisfeld, Jordan Rosenthal-Kay, How local is local development? Evidence from casinos, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Volume 115, 2025, 104139, ISSN 0166-0462, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104139.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Comments
Web of Science
Elsevier