Abstract
This paper evaluates the effects of Philadelphia’s 2000 residential property tax abatement, which exempted improvement values on newly constructed or substantially renovated properties, on housing markets, neighborhood reinvestment, and municipal fiscal outcomes. To isolate the causal impact of the abatement on construction and broader housing market dynamics, we leverage a quasi-experimental comparison with Camden, New Jersey—a similarly distressed city that did not adopt comparable tax incentives. Using detailed property-level data spanning more than two decades, we document the extent to which the abatement changed residential construction activity, vacancy rates, neighborhood development patterns, and population trends relative to Camden. We further examine the program’s implications for long-run property tax base growth and fiscal conditions. The evidence indicates that the tax incentive materially increased marginal construction, contributed to reductions in vacancy and blight, and was associated with renewed population growth, while strengthening the city’s long-run fiscal position by converting nonperforming parcels into durable taxpaying assets and expanding the property-tax base as abatements rolled off. This analysis highlights how local tax incentives can shape housing market outcomes in persistently distressed cities and offers robust, identification-based evidence on place-based housing policy.
