Experts say Foxconn subsidies are lost-opportunity job killers

Noted academics are looking past the politicized talking points and questioning oft-repeated Foxconn-jobs-and-valued added claims:

There is no reason to expect that this government interference in the workings of the market will produce even one net new job, and will likely lead to more sluggish growth and lost opportunity.... 

If the subsidy were spent on job creation elsewhere in the state, it is likely to produce several times 13,000 jobs; business writer John Torinus calculates the average subsidy per new job created in Wisconsin at about $23,000 per job. 

This is far less than the roughly $200,000 per job estimated in the Foxconn deal. At that rate, subsidizing other entrepreneurs with the $4.1 billion would yield approximately 90,000 new jobs. The diversion of tax money to the Foxconn subsidy results in a lost opportunity to add many more jobs to the Wisconsin economy and to add them over the entire state, not merely in its southeast corner.

 
The authors have impeccable credentials:

William L. Holahan is Emeritus Professor and former Chair of the Department of Economics at the UW-Milwaukee. Charles O. Kroncke served as Professor and Associate Dean of Business at UW-Madison as well as Dean of the School of Business at UW-Milwaukee and the School of Management at UT-Dallas. From August 2003 to May 2004, they served on, and Holahan chaired, the UW-System Search and Screen Committee during the search for a UWM chancellor.  

A link to a complete Foxconn archive is here.

I also reposted their work in November, and Holahan's research into pricing and conservation was cited in this 2011 post when the City of Waukesha was planning its investment in a Lake Michigan diversion:

At present, the information supplied by Waukesha has not included a thorough analysis of the use of pricing to affect the overall water use—the DNR must examine this potential water conservation and efficiency measure in more detail. 

In an earlier letter to DNR, dated May 7, 2010,  Professor William Holahan, Chair of the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee Department of Economics, noted that employing elasticity of demand analysis and pricing programs could result in significant reductions in water use.  

The savings from reductions in water use would be beneficial to both residents and businesses. Over the long term, Holahan comments, the reduction in water use would also minimize public expenditures on new infrastructure and maintenance costs. We urge the DNR to consider all of these issues in the Environmental Impact Analysis and technical review.