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Cities and Towns Are Paying Tech Workers to Abandon Silicon Valley

atlasunshrugged 4y ago
I think this is one of the most interesting points, " A study conducted by the Economic Innovation Group and commissioned by Tulsa Remote concluded that for every two people the program brings to the city, one new job is created. By contrast, when an office moves to a town, every new high-wage tech job creates an estimated five more jobs in sectors including healthcare, education and service, according to research by economist Enrico Moretti. That’s because those deals involve not only people but the money that goes into building and maintaining facilities, paying commercial property taxes and more." *edit to include links to the research below as they weren't linked in the copy/paste https://eig.org/tulsa-remote/ https://eig.org/tulsa-remote/ https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-multiplier-effect-of-innovation-jobs/ https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-multiplier-effect-of...
tschwimmer 4y ago
The obvious analysis from this article is that at the margin (i.e. what actually drives decisions) is that none of these incentives are going to be enough to materially influence a decision to relocate or even to relocate to a specific jurisdiction (vs another with a lesser/differing incentive). One inconvenient fact about these high paid tech workers is that they're highly paid - that means the value of each dollar to them is relatively less. If you're already making 200k a year, adding another 12k in benefits is much less significant than if you're making 80k. This is especially true when you consider the certain costs of relocation (Geo-based pay cut, moving costs) as well as the probabilistic ones (less career growth, fewer potential future employers). So I guess the conclusion is that these policies are actually not very good since they're almost certainly not the main driver of relocation. In the case of Tulsa it looks like it's being funded by a private foundation but in other jurisdictions this amounts to local taxpayers paying newcomers money to do something they were already going to do.
- fatnoah 4y ago
  I agree that these policies aren't driving relocation, but maybe serve more as a form of marketing and to capture a narrow slice of people already looking to move, but without strong opinions on eventual destinations. In that case, having the program can have some influence where $10k and co-working space is a tiebreaker vs. being the main determinant.

I think this is one of the most interesting points, " A study conducted by the Economic Innovation Group and commissioned by Tulsa Remote concluded that for every two people the program brings to the city, one new job is created. By contrast, when an office moves to a town, every new high-wage tech job creates an estimated five more jobs in sectors including healthcare, education and service, according to research by economist Enrico Moretti. That’s because those deals involve not only people but the money that goes into building and maintaining facilities, paying commercial property taxes and more." *edit to include links to the research below as they weren't linked in the copy/paste https://eig.org/tulsa-remote/ https://eig.org/tulsa-remote/ https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-multiplier-effect-of-innovation-jobs/ https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-multiplier-effect-of...

tschwimmer 4y ago

The obvious analysis from this article is that at the margin (i.e. what actually drives decisions) is that none of these incentives are going to be enough to materially influence a decision to relocate or even to relocate to a specific jurisdiction (vs another with a lesser/differing incentive). One inconvenient fact about these high paid tech workers is that they're highly paid - that means the value of each dollar to them is relatively less. If you're already making 200k a year, adding another 12k in benefits is much less significant than if you're making 80k. This is especially true when you consider the certain costs of relocation (Geo-based pay cut, moving costs) as well as the probabilistic ones (less career growth, fewer potential future employers). So I guess the conclusion is that these policies are actually not very good since they're almost certainly not the main driver of relocation. In the case of Tulsa it looks like it's being funded by a private foundation but in other jurisdictions this amounts to local taxpayers paying newcomers money to do something they were already going to do.

fatnoah 4y ago
I agree that these policies aren't driving relocation, but maybe serve more as a form of marketing and to capture a narrow slice of people already looking to move, but without strong opinions on eventual destinations. In that case, having the program can have some influence where $10k and co-working space is a tiebreaker vs. being the main determinant.