Economic Development Quarterly

Lotteries, casinos, and other forms of gambling are being promoted by state and local governments as painless ways to raise revenues. Supporters often rely on economic studies sponsored by the industry. Critics contend that gambling is problematic and not a substitute for sustainable economic development, and the public remains ambivalent. Bills currently pending in Congress would establish a national commission to study the impact of gambling. Long-term health of communities requires the promotion of well-researched and well-reasoned policies on legal gambling and economic development.

Gross's arguments are representative of the gambling literature. Unfortunately, many of the accepted arguments against gambling come from incomplete or biased economic analysis. This comment addresses several issues in Gross's article from an economist's perspective. First, Gross's concern for tax revenues (as a benefit) and tax regressivity (as a problem associated with legalized gambling) is unwarranted. Taxes are simply wealth transfers, and regressivity of voluntary taxes is hardly a reason for concern. Second, Gross and many other noneconomists mistakenly believe that exports are necessary for economic growth to occur Certainly, exports cannot be the only cause of growth, because the world economy has grown without exporting anything. Finally, Gross argues that there is no popular support for legalized gambling. But consumers vote with their dollars, and many "votes" have been cast in favor of legalized gambling.

Industrial ecology (IE) is an emerging framework for characterizing relationships between businesses and analyzing their economic and environmental performance. By applying the principles of IE, members of eco-industrial parks (EIPs) pursue improvements in their economic efficiency while reducing the environmental burden of their production activities. This article discusses the potential of EIPs for improving economic and environmental performance and presents a methodology for developing and analyzing potential EIPs. The methodology is applied to a prototype EIP based on companies in Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico. The potential for improved economic performance can be an important draw for public and private developers trying to populate an EIF, and this study shows that these benefits are attainable. We conclude with a discussion of the conditions necessary for successful EIPs in the United States.

Demanufacturing is the disassembly and recycling of obsolete consumer products such as TV sets, personal computers, refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners. The basic argument of this article is that demanufacturing is an industry that will thrive in urban areas, because inner cities have a unique set of resources that provide competitive advantage to demanufacturing companies. This article also argues that demanufacturing can have a significant impact on economic development in our urban centers by creating large numbers of jobs for unskilled and semiskilled workers. A model is suggested for the development of this industry and identifies some of the challenges the industry faces, as well as solutions that can be implemented by state, local, and federal officials.

Among the contentious aspects of the debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was the effect that the trade agreement was likely to have on jobs and wages for workers in Mexico and the United States. Proponents of NAFTA noted that the outcomes would vary by economic sector, but they generally agreed that automobile workers in Mexico would benefit due to the infusion of new capital and greater access to the U.S. market. In this article, I argue that the case of Volkswagen workers in Puebla, Mexico, suggests a different outcome. Evidence is presented that during the period preparing for NAFTA and through the first 3 years of its application, Volkswagen workers' rights have been weakened and their wages reduced. Preliminary support is offeredfor a thesis of NAFTA-driven downward harmonization for workers on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border

A key feature of British enterprise development policies is the launch in 1992 of a network of business link partnerships to rationalize the local provision of business support services for small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across England. This article examines the ways in which business links are expected to add value to the existing infrastructure and evaluates the effectiveness of the initiative 3 years after its announcement. Despite very significant differences in operations, size of catchment area, and legal structures between business link partnerships, similar problems have emerged. The common set of potentially damaging issues identified can be tackled locally by establishing collaborative-competitive partnerships and by increasing the role of local authorities. Nationally, central government consistently and continuously should use its leverage, resulting from its control over resources, to support the objectives it has set for business links.

The common wisdom in many growing communities is that newcomers demand more services than do long-term residents. Dissimilar attitudes toward local services can have important effects on local government activities and services. This study investigates whether municipal officials in growing areas perceive such a difference in the demand for services; it then examines the relationship between these perceptions and actual service delivery changes in the officials' communities to see whether such perceptions really matter. The study confirms not only that many officials believe this stereotype but also that such officials were much more likely to have increased services in the past 5 years. This suggests that the stereotype, far from being innocuous, may have implications for local taxes and service provision.