> The average converges on a small positive return for the city that wins. Or a negative return if too many cities are incompetently governed, but your problem

> The average converges on a small positive return for the city that wins. Or a negative return if too many cities are incompetently governed, but your problem in that case is the incompetent governance rather than the premise that offering something that does bring a net positive return to the city would be a bad choice. You presume two things here. One you call out, that city administrations need to be competent. The other you appear to have a blind spot for, companies need to be honest. As with many things in capitalist societies, where there is a disparity of information, markets don't function properly. And you're still describing a race to the absolute bottom. And you're still describing a broken market in which industries and individual businesses that can catch the attention of authorities, through press or lobbying, get preferential tax treatment over those that are less glamorous or which have less investment to throw around. This again distorts markets and picks winners. > And what is the alternative supposed to be? Set business rates which cover costs and give back to the administrative area in the amount the democratic authorities of that area require to provide services, infrastructure etc. Stick to them. > It's one of the only things that provides governments an incentive to improve efficiency. By making sure that business uses every trick it can to starve them of funds? LOL. You're describing a corrupt dystopia and you don't seem to realise it. LOL, it's amazing that to your mind the problem here is that cities are spending tax money on waste and corruption, not that allowing companies to come in and set up shop without paying their way is the sort of corruption of process a lot of people hate.