Unsurprisingly, local elected officials are all too willing to hand over taxpayer money, touting bogus jobs and economic development benefits. There's nothing like a good pep rally to get a policy "debate" rolling.

Fiscal policy would be a lot more fun if football games were legitimate policy levers.

It happens so often, that it's become normal in newsrooms. Other reporters/editors see this and think it must be real news, so they report it too. I'm not sure how we fix this, but it's now routine for media to spread misinformation that is used to promote harmful public policy.

I've subscribed to the PD for a few months for Browns stadium stuff, and it's among the country's best local papers. Yet, even here, this happens. It's not just a reporter getting fooled. Passing off a press release as news got past an editor and then promoted as a top story.

If you're wondering how this works...

The report was done by Economic Impact Group, which is the private consultancy of Alfie Meek, who is also director of Georgia Tech's CEDR center. I'm not aware of a single instance that the LOCI method used has projected something correctly. www.bryancountyga.gov/Home/Compone...

The idea that stadiums are development anchors is an outdated myth. Theoretically, agglomeration effects are complex/ambiguous, but I think the evidence suggests they're more likely to be negative than benign. Good paper by @bradhumphreys.bsky.social & Zhou: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Ungated pre-print papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

LOL. They actually use The Battery as a case study. Yet the report fails to mention that there's a peer-reviewed study that found the net fiscal impact was -$15 mil/year. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...