The evolving importance of incentives

A survey of economic development professionals and corporate executives indicates that incentives are and will remain significant to both groups. Of the 151 responses from International Association of Corporate Real Estate Executives (NACORE) members, 64% had relocated in the past 3 years and 60% had expanded at a current location. Of the 658 American Economic Development Council (AEDC) members polled, 57% were local economic developers. While most economic development groups today choose to offer incentives to entice new and expanding business investment, many have indicated that they would prefer not to do so. A full 49% of the AEDC respondents stated that they would prefer a situation in which no incentives were offered for projects. In contrast, only 17% of NACORE respondents thought positively of a situation in which incentives would not play a role in corporate relocation-expansion. Even so, among location screening factors, incentives ranked 14th out of 17 total factors.