Subsidy Insanity in Western Missouri

I have written before about the gross waste of taxpayer monies on retail in the St. Louis region. According to the East-West Gateway Council of Governments (p. 18), governments in the bi-state metropolitan area pumped about $2 billion worth of subsidies into retail projects from 1990 to 2007, but only saw a net increase of 5400 jobs, meaning that each low-wage, low-benefit retail job cost the cities of the region $370,000 apiece. The price is only this low on the generous assumption that the subsidies were solely responsible for this job creation. However, given the growth of incomes in the metro area during that time period, it is likely that most if not all the jobs would have been created without the incentives provided.

It turns out something similar has been happening in the Kansas City region. As regular readers of this blog know, the border job piracy in the Kansas City metro area is probably the second-worst in the country, after metro New York City. As it turns out, there has recently been data released on the scope of job piracy there.

Less than a year after Governors Jay Nixon (D-Missouri) and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) told New York Times reporter Louise Story, on camera, that there was no way they would back off of their wasteful poaching, a new Times story reveals that Nixon is now calling for an end to their futile battle.

Part of the reason for his change of heart probably lies with a recent study by the Hall Family Foundation showing that since 2009 alone, Missouri and Kansas City have spent $212 million on relocation subsidies to drag existing operations across the border, sometimes more than once as in the case of Applebee's. The net effect, however, has been virtually nil: 3200 jobs moved to Kansas, while 2800 move to Missouri, for a net movement of 400 jobs.

The math of course is simple: $212 million/400 equals $530,000 per net moved job. And remember, these aren't net new jobs, merely net moved jobs. As I've written on numerous occasions, job piracy is the least defensible use of development incentives, precisely because it creates no new jobs. Good Jobs First had a detailed analysis of the issue overall and the Kansas-Missouri border war in particular in January 2013.

However, if the most recent Times article is to be believed, we could be on the verge of ending this particular border war. Mind you, don't hold your breath. The two states tried before, according to Good Jobs First, and failed miserably. Indeed, there has yet to be a successful voluntary no-raiding agreement between states, even though there have been at least three attempts. But in this case, there has been a strong push for a cease-fire from a number of prominent Kansas City businesses, so there is a better-than-usual chance that this could be successful.

Really, though, there oughta be a law. A federal one.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

November Tax-Cast Highlights Fiscal Secrecy Index and Retrospective on President John F. Kennedy

This month's Taxcast from the Tax Justice Network highlights the results of the newest edition of the Financial Secrecy Index as well as U.S. President John F. Kennedy's attempts to rein in tax havens 50 years ago. These are definitely worth your while!

Columbia U. Conference Shows Incentives Pervasive but Controls Work

Day one of the Columbia International Investment Conference in New York has concluded, and the takeaways are very clear. The topic is investment incentives, prompted by Louise Story's "United States of Subsides" series last December. Story moderated panel 1, which covered the pervasiveness of subsidies. How widely used are investment subsidies? As the presentations made clear, they are used by virtually every country in the world. That is depressing takeaway number one.

The second big lesson is that for most types of foreign direct investment, the use of incentives has no effect at all. Resource companies, companies seeking strategic assets, and companies needing to sell in a particular market are coming regardless of the use of incentives. (I would qualify the last part to say that only applies when coming to markets that aren't divided into a number of competing jurisdictions, such as the US and EU, where the member states can engage in subsidy wars, related but gated article here.) It is only for "efficiency seeking" or cost minimization investment that incentives can make some difference in location decisions.

Third, one of the biggest cost of incentives consists of funds given to firms that were coming to your location even if they had not received the subsidy, according to Louis Wells, the panel 2 moderator. He says most studies place this at 60% to 70%. A more recent study by Peter Fisher (p. 8) says that a more typical figure for the amount of jobs is only about 9%, versus the 30-40% implied by Wells. This means that the real cost per job of projects is at least 2.5 times as large as reported cost per job, and may be up to 11 times higher. And don't forget that there is also a big opportunity cost based on the value of other possible uses of the funds given away. As I have pointed out, all the public sector jobs lost since December 2007 could be replaced if incentives were abolished.

Fourth, the good news is that there are control methods that do work. I have written before about this, and a conference presentation by Investment Consulting Associates (p. 3) illustrates this with a comparison of incentives in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. Recall that European Union state aid policy aims to direct bigger incentives to poorer regions of the EU. ICA's database shows that the mean incentive was more than twice as large ($8.61 million vs. $3.41 million) in the Czech Republic than in the UK; the  mean "aid intensity" (subsidy/investment) was 36% in the Czech  Republic compared to just 15% in the UK; and mean cost per job was $67,088 in the Czech Republic versus only $20,288 in the UK. These are precisely the outcomes the European Commission wants to achieve with the state aid rules, creating a reliable bias in favor of poorer regions (and at the same time the poorer regions have subsidy limits holding down what investors can receive).

Tomorrow (Thursday, November 14) will have panels on "What are the alternatives" and my panel, "The way forward," where we will discuss EU rules and other methods of controlling out-of-control incentive wars. You can follow the action on Twitter at #CIIC13.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

Ted Cruz's Tax Haven Past

A version of this post was previously published at US News and World Report's "Economic Intelligence" blog: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/10/25/ted-cruz-will-vote-against-tax-haven-reform
Reprinted here under the terms of my contract with US News and World Report.

Time (h/t TPM) reports that Texas Senator Ted Cruz invested $6000 in a company with his college roommate/debate partner, David Panton, which has turned into at least $100,000. While this is true on paper and required Cruz to make multiple amendments to his Senate financial disclosures, the story is of more interest to me for Cruz’s use of a tax haven company.

The tax haven in this case is the British Virgin Islands. Caribbean Equity Partners Limited was founded by Panton, Cruz, and two other partners in 1998. Cruz’s $6000 plus help starting the firm gave him a 10% ownership stake, according to a spokesperson for Cruz in response to my email inquiries. The other partners owned 30% apiece, she said.

Caribbean Equity Partners Limited consisted of two separate units, Caribbean Equity Partners Limited (Jamaica) and Caribbean Equity Partners Limited (BVI). Cruz held stock in both of them. In the Jamaica corporation, he held 100 regular shares plus 250 Class “C” Preference Shares. He held 5000 shares of the British Virgin Islands-incorporated company. This information comes from a Certificate of Divestiture dated January 6, 2003, filed when his wife, Heidi Cruz, took a job in the Department of the Treasury, one of many documents published by Time (see link above). The Cruz spokesperson confirmed his ownership in both companies.

This divestiture, about five years after the company was founded, netted Cruz $100,000, consisting of $25,000 in cash and a $75,000 promissory note from a different company, CEP Investments Holdings Limited. This firm is headquartered in Jamaica but domiciled for tax purposes in the British Virgin Islands, Cruz told Time. He also told the magazine that it is “effectively” a promissory note from Panton, as the company is owned by Panton. Based on what the Time story describes as an “oral provision” with Panton to pay reasonable interest on the note, it has now grown to over $100,000 in value as noted in an October 1 amended disclosure and confirmed by the Cruz spokesperson. As the promissory note shows, it was originally scheduled to have been paid December 31, 2003, but according to Cruz’s spokesperson he and Panton have an oral agreement to postpone payment indefinitely. (For this reason, his $6,000 investment may never grow beyond the $25,000 he has already collected.)

Cruz’s ownership of a firm with a tax haven-based unit does not augur well for him to oppose tax havens, as did some Republicans in the past. Notably, former Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) co-sponsored the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act of 2007. Moreover, we find from opensecrets.org that Cruz has received campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs (where his wife now works) PAC and Credit Suisse Group PAC, in addition to tens of thousands of dollars from employees of the two companies. According to the Government Accountability Office, as of 2009 Goldman Sachs had 29 tax haven subsidiaries, including 15 in the Cayman Islands and one in the British Virgin Islands. Credit Suisse, of course, is a Swiss bank under criminal investigation for assisting at least some of its American clients to commit tax evasion.

Bottom line: Senator Cruz is almost certainly a vote against tax haven reform.

Cruz’s spokesperson also issued a statement: “This story is much ado about nothing.  It concerns a 15-year-old business venture from which Sen. Cruz entirely divested more than a decade ago.  He holds no equity interest in any Caribbean business, and has not had any such interest, compensation, or income for more than 10 years. Upon divesting from the venture in early 2003, the Senator received a partial payment and also a promissory note from his business partner and college roommate.  That promissory note--on which [Time’s] entire article is based-- is technically still owed (and thus was voluntarily disclosed), but it has never been paid and Sen. Cruz has never attempted to collect on it.”

Columbia U. Conference on Investment Incentives

On November 13 and 14, the 8th Annual Columbia International Investment Conference will be held in New York City. Sponsored by the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment, the conference is titled: "Investment Incentives -- the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Assessing the Costs, Benefits, and the Options for Policy Reform."

The meetings will focus primarily on location subsidies for foreign investment, and primarily in developing countries. But there will also be plenty of coverage of North America and the European Union, as well as discussion of global institutions and regimes. Louise Story, author of the very valuable New York Times series, "The United States of Subsidies," will moderate the first panel.

As the conference materials lay out in greater detail, "The aim of this year’s Conference is to advance our understanding about the role that incentives have played in attracting and retaining foreign direct investment; the policy rationales supporting or discouraging various types of incentives; the strategies that may be more effective at achieving the objectives of host governments; and the potential for future coordinated action on these issues."

I will be speaking during the Thursday afternoon panel on the topic of controlling investment incentives (what else?). There will be an outstanding roster of panelists, both academics and practitioners. If you're interested in the topic and will be in the vicinity, you should attend. Registration is free, but also required in advance. You can register at the link above.

Irish Austerity Exodus Continues

The Eurozone experiment in austerity continues to fail as the peripheral countries endure ongoing cuts. Following up on my post of August 15, it's time to look at the most recent Irish immigration data to update it through April 2013 (Ireland records population data from May 1 to April 30) and see how it affects the reported unemployment rate. The picture remains ugly, with emigration climbing once again, from 87,100 in 2011-2012 to 89,000 in 2012-13. Immigration increased by 3200, so net emigration fell by 1300, with net out-migration over the year declining by about 3% to 33,100. Here are the details:

	Year ending
		April 2012	April 2013
	Immigration	52,700	55,900
	Emigration	87,100	89,000
	Net migration	-34,400	-33,100
	of which Irish nationals	-25,900	-35,200

Source: Central Statistics Office Ireland


Take a good look at the last line: Net emigration by the Irish themselves increased by 35.9% and accounts for all net out-migration; there was net in-migration by non-Irish citizens of 2100 in 2012-13. Indeed, the Irish comprised 57.2% of all emigrants in the most recent report.

What was the effect of emigration on the unemployment rate? Once again in 2013, people in the age group closest to what we would consider prime-age workers (15-64, given how Ireland reports immigration by age groups; see Table 4 of the linked report) left the country at a higher rate than children and seniors, with total out-migration for those 15-64 of 35,300. That brings total out-migration for population years 2010-2013 to 126,000.

Since April 2013 data is a much better match for Ireland's official first-quarter 2013 unemployment data than April 2012 was, I am going to repeat my calculation from August, still using Q1 2013 unemployment of 13.7% as my base. Again, there were 292,000 officially unemployed in the first quarter; dividing by 0.137 gives an estimated workforce of 2,131,387. We now add 126,000 to numerator and denominator to get the maximum potential unemployment rate, which would exist if all 126,000 were in the labor force and unemployed: 418,000/2,257,387, or 18.5%.

Even if we add in only those in the most prime working-age group in the Irish statistics, those from 25 to 44 years old, we still find that the imputed unemployment rate exceeds the country's maximum during this crisis of 15.1%. 2013's 12,500 net out-migration in this age group brings the 2010-2013 total to 48,500; adding this to the numerator and denominator gives us 340,500/2,179,887 or 15.6%.

Paul Krugman points out that we can also see this by looking at Ireland's employment rate. Over 2.1 million were employed in the third quarter of 2007; in the second quarter of 2013, the number is still far depressed at 1,869,900, which represents a 1.8% increase from a year earlier.

Finally, the overall picture for the EU and the eurozone has deteriorated over the previous year: EU unemployment rose from 10.6% in August 2012 to 10.9% in August 2013 (most recent month available), while eurozone unemployment rose from 11.5% in August 2012 to 12.0% in August 2013. Both figures were down a hair from several months earlier. But in Greece, new records continue to be set, with unemployment in June 2013 (most recent month available) hitting 27.9%. By contrast, as Eurostat shows, unemployment has steadily declined in the United States and Japan.

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, the evidence that austerity has failed in Europe still is not affecting EU policy, nor has it stopped the cacophony of voices in the United States calling for more austerity. While Republicans supposedly "lost" the government shutdown crisis, they succeeded in locking in sequester-level government spending until the next crisis, and sequester II will be here soon. God help us.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

Median Wealth Increases, but U.S. Still Stuck at 27th in World

The new Global Wealth Report and Global Wealth Databook from Credit Suisse were released last week. According to the Report (p. 3),

Global wealth has reached a new all-time high of USD 241 trillion, up 4.9% since last year and 68% since 2003, with the USA accounting for 72% of the latest increase. Average [mean] wealth per adult reached a new all-time high of USD 51,600, with wealth per adult in Switzerland returning to above USD 500,000.

For the United States, this represents an increase in mean wealth per adult of 11.4% from mid-2012 to mid-2013 (Databook, p. 92). Median wealth per adult increased even faster, from $38,786 to $44,911, or 15.8%, although we should recall that measurement of median wealth is less reliable than that for mean wealth.

Nonetheless, while these data represent improvement for the typical American, there was no change in our ranking relative to the rest of the world. While Kuwait and Cyprus fell below the U.S., Slovenia and, more surprisingly, Greece now have higher median wealth per adult. Thus, the United States remains only 27th in the world.

These data are significant for at least two reasons. First, they highlight the fact that while the United States has a higher gross domestic product per capita than all but four of the 26 countries ahead of it in median wealth per adult (Qatar, Luxembourg, Singapore, and Norway), the long-term trend of economic policies has clearly hurt the middle class. Inequality is a big part of the explanation here: mean wealth per adult in the U.S. is 6.7 times median wealth per adult, the highest ratio in the top 27. By contrast, in #1 Australia the mean-to-median ratio is only 1.8:1. In fact, this ratio is less than 3:1 for 19 of the 26 countries with higher median wealth per adult. In Slovenia, mean wealth per adult is less than 1.5 times median wealth per adult! (All figures calculated from Databook, Table 3-1.)

Second, these low levels of wealth contribute to the coming retirement crisis of the middle class. Americans have low levels of saving, while Social Security still looks vulnerable to the chopping block despite our already high level of elder poverty.

Here are the top 27 countries by median wealth per adult.

Country                                                      Median Wealth
                                                                   Per Adult

1.  Australia                                                    $219,505
2.  Luxembourg                                               $182,768
3.  Belgium                                                     $148,141
4.  France                                                        $141,850
5.  Italy                                                           $138,653
6.  United Kingdom                                         $111,524
7.  Japan                                                         $110,294
8.  Iceland                                                      $104,733
9.  Switzerland                                               $  95,916
10. Finland                                                     $  95,095
11. Norway                                                    $  92,859
12. Singapore                                                 $  90,466
13. Canada                                                     $  90,252
14. Netherlands                                              $  83,631
15. New Zealand                                            $  76,607
16. Ireland                                                      $  75,573
17. Spain                                                        $  63,306
18. Qatar                                                        $  58,237
19. Denmark                                                  $  57,675
20. Austria                                                     $  57,450
21. Greece                                                      $  53,937
22. Taiwan                                                      $  53,336
23. Sweden                                                     $  52,677
24. United Arab Emirates                                 $  51,882
25. Germany                                                   $  49,370
26. Slovenia                                                    $  44,932
27. United States                                            $  44,911

Source: Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook, Table 3-1

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.