Opportunity Zones Aren’t a Program — They’re a Market

Commentary on Opportunity Zones published on October 3, 2019, co-authored with Howard W. Buffett and Mark Newberg. Arguing that OZs were designed to spur tax-incentivized investments that benefit underserved communities, we explained that the incentive is being misunderstood as a program and not a market.

Noting that the earliest OZ investments raised important concerns about being manipulated by the wealthy for their own gain, we addressed the importance of efforts focused on impact.

We then explained that the key to success for Opportunity Zones will be addressing these concerns in order to encourage capital to flow into communities and create the outcomes that justified this tax incentive in the first place.

This commentary was republished with permission by Real Clear Markets.

How Communities Can Benefit from Amazon’s Great Data Caper

Opinion article published on January 6, 2020, about the Amazon HQ2 bidding war among 238 economic development experts from across the country, which I deemed “Amazon’s Great Data Caper.”

Thousands of public officials nationwide dedicated countless taxpayer-funded hours to the HQ2 sweepstakes, and the outcome was a privatization of that information for Amazon. Each of those bids included a treasure trove of information on strategies for workforce development, transportation, housing, education and infrastructure. I explained that Amazon “now has intimate knowledge of 238 communities' development plans, which it acquired nearly effortlessly and for free.”

I further addressed several difficult trends: U.S. entrepreneurial activity is nearing a 40-year low, while the post-recession recovery was not evenly distributed nationwide. In fact, most places between the coasts never felt substantial gains during the post-recession economic recovery. Since 2011, nearly 60 percent of new businesses were formed in only 25 percent of the most prosperous ZIP codes. Everywhere else, there were more companies shutting down than being started.

How and Why to Measure the Impact of Investments in Opportunity Zones

Commentary piece published on June 26, 2019, which was co-authored with Howard W. Buffett and Mark Newberg, that begins with a pressing question about the tax overhaul that was enacted through the 2017 Tax Cut And Jobs Act: “A decade from now, how will we know if Opportunity Zones actually helped people?”

To answer that question, the three of us (with support from our institutions, Columbia, Georgetown, and Tulane) brought together government, foundations, business, and community development experts in a symposium series about the risks of failing to take impact into account early on in Opportunity Zone investments. The results of those discussions were addressed in this piece.

The article was republished with permission by Real Assets Adviser and Accelerator For America.

Don’t Rob 'Opportunity Zones' of Their Full Potential

Opinion article co-authored with Scott Shalett on November 9, 2018, which stressed that while most media coverage has focused on the $6.1 trillion in potential private investment, policymakers and investors should keep the 35 million Americans who live in Opportunity Zones at the forefront of the discussion.

First, we called for reconsideration of the gross income provisions.  This matter was further explored in a letter we sent to the IRS and then was later addressed by the the federal government, which clarified the policy to align with our recommendations.

Second, we called for more intentional community engagement upfront. As we concluded: “Our many years of experience in public affairs and community investing have taught us that embedding an impact focus and seeking community input at the outset is far easier and more effective early on, rather than attempting to retroactively measure such non-monetary results or rebuild trust with communities after investments have been made.”

5 Development Lessons from Hurricane Katrina

A personal reflection published on August 28, 2015, on the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which was written in my role as a member of the World Economic Forum’s United Nations Sustainable Development Council.

I encouraged executives, policymakers, and other leaders to ask: “What are my unsustainable practices and where can we invest now, to save more later? To whom should I listen more, and what community viewpoints are being marginalized? Where has inaction gone on too long? What risks can we mitigate? What is in our collective long-term interest, and where have we left undone the things that we ought to do? In other words: where are there cracks in our levees?”

Why Creating The Next Silicon Valley ... Is The Wrong Goal