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Most of the "incentive" situations are not a choice between those two scenarios, they are a choice between having the business there and giving them an (initial) tax break, or having the business go elsewhere. It's a choice between collecting discounted taxes, or none at all, not discounted vs. non-discounted.



It's a typical prisoners' dilemma failure. The states ought to band together and pledge not to give out these tax breaks. Since they're all deciding independently, the incentive to defect and offer a tax break is high.


Except that it doesn't work like that.

What happens is that the jobs up and move as soon as the subsidy ends.

There has been quite a bit of research done on these kinds of tax subsidies and they almost always cost more than doing nothing and not getting the jobs.


So you claim that in five years Tesla will abandon their Nevada Gigafactory and build a new one in another state. Doesn't check out.




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