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The impact of Urban Enterprise Zones on establishment location decisions and labor market outcomes: evidence from France

Author

Listed:
  • Thierry Mayer

    (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Florian Mayneris

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, UCL IRES - Institut de recherches économiques et sociales - UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain)

  • Loriane Py

    (Centre de recherche de la Banque de France - Banque de France)

Abstract

In this article, we study the impact of a French enterprise zone program—the ‘Zones Franches Urbaines' (ZFUs) policy—on establishment location decisions and on labor market outcomes. Our main identification strategy, which combines spatial and time differencing, shows that conditional on locating in a municipality that hosts a ZFU, the policy has a positive and sizable impact on the probability to locate in the ZFU part rather than in the non-ZFU part of municipalities. However, the impact is highly heterogeneous across zones, industries and firms. We also show that this positive effect is entirely due to within-municipality diversion effects. Regarding labor market outcomes, the policy has a positive effect on employment, especially for low-wage workers. As for wages, the effect is null for low-wage workers, and negative for high-wage ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Thierry Mayer & Florian Mayneris & Loriane Py, 2017. "The impact of Urban Enterprise Zones on establishment location decisions and labor market outcomes: evidence from France," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03391961, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:spmain:hal-03391961
    DOI: 10.1093/jeg/lbv035
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firm location; Enterprise zones; Employment; Wages; Spatial differencing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

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