Providing state and local subsidies to build stadiums for professional sports teams is likely to cost the relevant taxpayers more than any local economic benefits that are generated.
Responses
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
19%
10%
0%
2%
12%
45%
12%
Responses weighted by each expert's confidence
© 2025. Kent A. Clark Center for Global Markets.
0%
4%
11%
57%
26%
Participant |
University |
Vote |
Confidence |
Bio/Vote History |
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 Daron Acemoglu |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Alberto Alesina |
Harvard | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Joseph Altonji |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Tangible economic benefits are not large. Consumer satisfaction from having a local team is harder to quantify.
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 Alan Auerbach |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 David Autor |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Hmm, Is this the most pressing economic issue of the moment? I wouldn't have thought so...
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 Katherine Baicker |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Abhijit Banerjee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Marianne Bertrand |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Markus Brunnermeier |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Raj Chetty |
Harvard | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Judith Chevalier |
Yale | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 David Cutler |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Angus Deaton |
Princeton | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Darrell Duffie |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Aaron Edlin |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Barry Eichengreen |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Liran Einav |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Ray Fair |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Amy Finkelstein |
MIT | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Pinelopi Goldberg |
Yale | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Austan Goolsbee |
Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Michael Greenstone |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Sports teams generate value that they cannot capture thru tixs/tv----Chicagoans benefited from Cubs winning WS. Subsidies are compensation
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 Robert Hall |
Stanford | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Oliver Hart |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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The evidence suggests that expenditure by tourists is small and that locals who spend more on this sport spend less on other activities.
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 Bengt Holmström |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Caroline Hoxby |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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The empirical research on this topic is fairly unambiguous.
-see background information here |
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 Hilary Hoynes |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Kenneth Judd |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Steven Kaplan |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Anil Kashyap |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Full public financing of stadiums is mostly a transfer to the owners
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 Pete Klenow |
Stanford | Bio/Vote History | ||
 Jonathan Levin |
Stanford | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Eric Maskin |
Harvard | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 William Nordhaus |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Emmanuel Saez |
Berkeley | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Larry Samuelson |
Yale | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Common estimates of the benefits are often wildly inflated, and fail to distinguish total economic activity form net gains in activities.
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 José Scheinkman |
Columbia University | Bio/Vote History | ||
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See e.g. Zimbalist and Noll "Sports, Jobs, & Taxes: Are New Stadiums Worth the Cost?"
-see background information here |
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 Richard Schmalensee |
MIT | Bio/Vote History | ||
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While there may be exceptions, this is a easy call -- particularly for football stadiums.
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 Carl Shapiro |
Berkeley | Did Not Answer | Bio/Vote History | |
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 Robert Shimer |
University of Chicago | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Some local economic benefits are easy to quantify and those are small. But agglomeration effects are harder to measure.
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 Richard Thaler |
Chicago Booth | Bio/Vote History | ||
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 Christopher Udry |
Northwestern | Bio/Vote History | ||
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Almost always true, if "economic" is narrowly construed as "fiscal". This is true for museums and concert halls as well.
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