Sportsfare—Welfare for Professional Sports

Abstract

State and local governments often view public subsidies or construction of sports facilities and convention centers as efficient and effective tools of local economic development and jobs development. Yet investments in these types of structures generally are poor means of encouraging economic development because commitments of public funds to these types of structures generally is more costly and less productive in terms of the level of economic development or job development that results when compared to other investments such as in education. Second, because these strategies are pursued by multiple governments, their effects cancel one another out.