Saturday, July 07, 2007

There Is No Such Thing As Fiscally Responsible Public Investments

1. Golf courses do not pay, especially when politicians use the National Golf Foundation as their main reason to build a course.

2. From this report:

"Baseball does not boost the local economy. Andrew Zimbalist, a leading sports economist, wrote earlier this year: “There are very few fields of economic research that produce unanimous agreement. Yet every independent economic analysis of the impact of stadiums has found no predictable positive effect on output or employment. Some studies have even concluded that there is a possible negative impact.” This perhaps surprising finding largely reflects the fact that families and individuals who spend money to attend a baseball game spend less on other forms of entertainment than they would in the absence of a stadium."

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