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Lamar County — Paris Economic Development Plan <br />economy, and the jobs -to- population ratio. In order to successfully compete with other regions to <br />attract and retain high -wage primary employers, the county will need to offer incentives to <br />qualifying companies. An incentives matrix, or mathematical screening process that can be used <br />to pre - qualify a company for particular incentives, has been developed to assist with this process. <br />Principles To Guide Paris Economic Development Policies <br />By Pete Kampfer, PEDC <br />This paper contains the discussion of principles for local economic development policies. What principles <br />should help set the goals, organization, and methods used by local economic development <br />policymakers? How should local policymakers evaluate economic development programs? <br />GOALS <br />Guiding Principle I: Creating More Jobs in a "Broadly Defined Market" Has Significant <br />Benefits. <br />"More jobs" is the number one goal of most local economic development organizations. The <br />empirical evidence supports placing a high priority on more jobs for the overall local labor market. The <br />local labor market is an area that encompasses most local commuting flows, such as a metropolitan area. <br />Increasing the total jobs in a local labor market significantly increases the earnings of local workers and <br />the unemployed. Empirical research shows that an increase of ten percent in a metropolitan area's <br />employment will increase average real earnings per person by around four percent. Half of this increase in <br />real earnings occurs because local residents who otherwise would be out of the labor force get jobs. The <br />other half of the increase in real earnings occurs because growth allows some individuals to be promoted <br />to better paying occupations. <br />The benefits of local employment growth are greater, in percentage terms, for lower income <br />persons, less educated persons, and blacks. For example, an increase in metropolitan area employment has <br />about twice as great a percentage effect on the income of families in the bottom income quintile (the <br />poorest one -fifth of all families) as it does for the average family. As a result, faster employment growth <br />in a metropolitan area significantly reduces local poverty. <br />How can suburban employment growth help central city residents, when many city residents do <br />not have access to these jobs? Only some metropolitan residents need have commuting access for an <br />increase in jobs anywhere within a metropolitan area to affect all metropolitan residents. For example, if <br />new suburban jobs go to suburbanites who formerly commuted to the central city, the resulting central <br />city job vacancies may benefit central city residents. There is enough commuting between different <br />communities within a metropolitan area that the entire metropolitan area shares similar, if not identical, <br />labor market fortunes. Where jobs are located within a metropolitan area does make some difference, but <br />not as much as the health of the overall local labor market. <br />The benefits of more jobs are greater in local labor markets with high unemployment and <br />sluggish growth. Such distressed areas will have a less mobile population and are probably less attractive <br />to in- migrants. Additional jobs are more likely to increase the employment rates of current residents and <br />are less likely to go to in- migrants. <br />In addition, the social benefits of employing the average unemployed person are greater in a high <br />unemployment area than in a low unemployment area. In a low unemployment area, most persons who <br />perceive a high benefit to employment will have a job. The remaining unemployed will on average only <br />perceive modest benefits to becoming employed —the wage rate will not much exceed the value they <br />Paris Economic Development Corporation Page 43 <br />