Targeting Economic Development: An Examination of the Needs of Small Businesses
通过调查小企业感知的需求和对激励的反应，发现都市小企业更需要改善公共服务（如治安、环卫、交通和降低能源成本），而非现有经济发展项目提供的激励，因此建议激励应更直接针对小企业实际需求。
States have adopted a range of incentives to encourage small business retention and expansion. These include industrial development bonds, tax credits for employment or building programs, and large-scale development to improve infrastructure systems. The effectiveness of such strategies has not been examined carefully. One approach, utilized in this study, is to survey small businesses to determine their perceived needs and reactions to incentives. It is discovered that small businesses in a metropolitan setting require better public services—especially crime protection, sanitation, transportation, and lower energy costs—which are generally not addressed by economic development programs. Thus, this study concludes that incentives need to be targeted more directly to the expressed and observed needs of small businesses in order to provide a more optimal benefit-cost relationship between incentives and growth.