An Examination of Incentives to Attract and Retain Businesses in Kentucky

Excerpt from the executive summary: The offering of tax and other location-based incentives to firms considering locating operations in a state, as well as firms with existing operations, has become a common practice of both state and local governments in the past thirty years. However, these programs are not without their critics. Some of the concerns about these programs arise from the lack of strong evidence, either supportive or critical of these programs. The Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development contracted with the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) to produce a series of reports examining the effectiveness of tax incentives in Kentucky

Educational Spending: Kentucky vs. Other States

Excerpts from the executive summary: The passage of the Kentucky Educational Reform Act (KERA) in 1990 had a dramatic impact on the funding of primary and secondary education in the state. The amount of money spent on education increased significantly with the passage of KERA with districts in rural areas of the state experiencing the largest growth in spending (Hoyt, 1999). This has led to a decline in the disparity between rural and urban districts in education spending. However, despite the increase in educational spending, Kentucky still lags behind the typical state in the U.S. in spending per student (Troske, 2008). Although several studies examine the impact that KERA had on the level of spending, very little work has been done on the impact of KERA and on how the increase in education money is being spent. What evidence there is suggests that KERA may have impacted the allocation of education dollars in Kentucky. In 1996 Kentucky had the lowest ratio of teachers relative to total public school staff of any state in the country, so Kentucky appears to be spending a much larger share of its educational budget on administrative staff compared to other states (Hoyt, 1999). In addition, the share of money spent on teachers appears to have increased after KERA, particularly in rural areas which tend to receive a larger portion of their funding from the state (Hoyt, 1999). In Kentucky state dollars make up a much larger share of a district’s educational budget than in other states, and this lack of control over funding could lead to less efficient uses of resources

The Economic Impacts of Land Use Policies in Lexington, Kentucky

Every five years, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government’s Planning Commission adopts a comprehensive plan detailing goals and objectives that guide the city’s land use planning. Maintaining the city’s urban service area and preserving its rural and agricultural areas are integral parts of this plan. Within the urban service area, land is zoned to permit various types of urban uses such as residential, commercial, and industrial use. Land outside the urban service area is subject to several land use policies designed to preserve the rural characteristics of these areas. This report examines the effects of Lexington’s land use policies and specifically its urban service area

Kentucky Annual Economic Report 2018

This report is one of the important ways that the Center for Business and Economic Research fulfills its mission as specified in the Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS 164.738) to examine various aspects of the Kentucky economy. The analysis and data presented here cover a variety of topics that range from an economic forecast for Kentucky in 2018 to a broad presentation of factors affecting the economy

Kentucky Annual Economic Report 2016

This report is one of the important ways that the Center for Business and Economic Research fulfills its mission as specified in the Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS 164.738) to examine various aspects of the Kentucky economy. The analysis and data presented here cover a variety of topics that range from an economic forecast for Kentucky in 2018 to a broad presentation of factors affecting the economy

The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. VIII. An Independent Determination of the Hubble Constant Based on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch

We present a new and independent determination of the local value of the Hubble constant based on a calibration of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) applied to Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). We find a value of H0 = 69.8 ± 0.8 (±1.1% stat) ± 1.7 (±2.4% sys) km s−1 Mpc−1. The TRGB method is both precise and accurate and is parallel to but independent of the Cepheid distance scale. Our value sits midway in the range defined by the current Hubble tension. It agrees at the 1.2σ level with that of the Planck Collaboration et al. estimate and at the 1.7σ level with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) SHoES measurement of H0 based on the Cepheid distance scale. The TRGB distances have been measured using deep HST Advanced Camera for Surveys imaging of galaxy halos. The zero-point of the TRGB calibration is set with a distance modulus to the Large Magellanic Cloud of 18.477 ± 0.004 (stat) ± 0.020 (sys) mag, based on measurement of 20 late-type detached eclipsing binary stars, combined with an HST parallax calibration of a 3.6 μm Cepheid Leavitt law based on Spitzer observations. We anchor the TRGB distances to galaxies that extend our measurement into the Hubble flow using the recently completed Carnegie Supernova Project I ( CSP-I ) sample containing about 100 well-observed SNe Ia . There are several advantages of halo TRGB distance measurements relative to Cepheid variables; these include low halo reddening, minimal effects of crowding or blending of the photometry, only a shallow (calibrated) sensitivity to metallicity in the I band, and no need for multiple epochs of observations or concerns of different slopes with period. In addition, the host masses of our TRGB host-galaxy sample are higher, on average, than those of the Cepheid sample, better matching the range of host-galaxy masses in the CSP-I distant sample and reducing potential systematic effects in the SNe Ia measurements