Page 47 – Show-Me Institute

Sacre Bleu! Sporting Events and Stadia Don’t Drive Economic Development

Posted on July 16, 2024January 13, 2026 by Patrick Tuohey

The Telegraph reminds us that big sports events usually fail to meet the promises made regarding their impact on economic development. The Paris Olympics, set to open in less than two weeks, was supposed to be a grand event to boost tourism, revive the city, and kick-start France’s sluggish economy.

The reality is starkly different, and we shouldn’t be surprised. Historically, the economic benefits of hosting the Olympics have been dubious, and Paris is proving no exception. Despite the €7.5 billion investment, tourism has slumped, with travelers avoiding the city due to expected overcrowding. The author of the Telegraph piece writes:

Judging by the experience of other cities, many of those supposed benefits never materialise and the host is stuck with a series of expensive developments that no one can find a use for. To take just one example, the London Stadium, constructed for the 2012 games, makes a decent ground for West Ham, but it is hard to understand why taxpayer’s cash was needed to build it.

I share this in the hopes that seeing the failed promises of big sporting events overseas will make the argument at home more palatable. These investments just don’t pan out for taxpayers, be they for the Olympic Games, the Royals, Chiefs, or Cardinals. And yes, as my colleague David Stokes wrote 14 years ago, “there is a big difference between hosting an event for which you have to build facilities, like the Olympics, and hosting an event for which you already have the requisite facilities for other purposes.” But the impact, or rather the lack thereof, remains.

Given these challenges, the author suggests a permanent home for the games. Perhaps Greece. Establishing a permanent venue could drastically reduce costs, simplify organization, and minimize corruption.

That may be a viable solution for the Olympics, but for those of us stateside, the lesson needs to be learned. These events, be they Olympics or political conventions, don’t drive meaningful economic activity. They aren’t worth expending public funds on.

Why Markets Matter for Human Progress with Russell Sobel

Posted on July 15, 2024January 13, 2026 by James V. Shuls

James V. Shuls speaks with Russell S. Sobel, Professor of Economics and Entrepreneurship at the Baker School of Business at The Citadel, about his latest paper, “Why Markets Matter for Human Progress & Prosperity.” They discuss how free markets drive innovation, prosperity, and human flourishing, the historical context of market-based economies, the pitfalls of government intervention, the long-term benefits of entrepreneurship and competition, and more.

Read the full paper here.

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Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

Congress Moves to Advance Nuclear Energy

Posted on July 10, 2024January 13, 2026 by Avery Frank

The ADVANCE Act recently powered through the U.S. Senate and is now on the president’s desk. This bill, which is intended to improve and streamline advanced nuclear power plant construction, had almost unanimous support, passing the Senate with a resounding vote of 88–2. If we want to strengthen our grid, meet the growing demand for power, and keep our air clean, nuclear has to be a big part of our energy plan.

You can read my past thoughts on the bill here and here.

Here is a summary of the policy changes in the ADVANCE Act:

Narrows which regulatory costs nuclear energy licensees have to pay (read more here).
Establishes an award program for pioneers in the advanced nuclear industry.
Streamlines the process to convert “covered sites” (land formerly used for coal plants, factories, etc.,) into nuclear reactor sites.
Mandates the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to expedite the “combined license” process for applicants building at a site where a nuclear plant currently operates or has previously operated.
Seeks to increase manpower at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Updates the mission statement of the NRC to be more supportive of nuclear energy.

While the federal government got something done, Missouri missed an opportunity this past session to repeal its own burdensome anti-nuclear regulations. One particular letdown was the failure to revise the construction-works-in-progress (CWIP) law. You can read specifics on that policy here.

In 2022, Ameren Missouri (the state’s primary utility) relied on coal for 66 percent of its electricity generation. By 2045, Ameren plans to bring that number to zero. Missouri could mimic Wyoming and turn one of these soon to be “covered” sites into an advanced nuclear reactor site. The ADVANCE Act, if signed, will expedite this process in the future—just in time for our energy transition.

Additionally, there have past efforts to add another unit to the Callaway Nuclear plant, Missouri’s one and only commercial nuclear reactor. The ADVANCE Act would allow “combined licenses” mentioned above, which would make more units at the Callaway Plant eligible for a faster review.

Isn’t it time to pass nuclear reform in Missouri? The federal government has made its move—now it’s Missouri’s turn to repeal anti-nuclear regulations such as the CWIP law and perhaps form a Missouri Nuclear Energy Advisory Council (similar to Tennessee’s). Missouri leaders ought to ensure nothing stands in the way of strengthening our grid with clean, reliable, and powerful nuclear energy.

Teacher Retention and the Limits of Public Policy

Posted on July 9, 2024December 16, 2025 by James V. Shuls

Recently, I published a paper with a former graduate student in the Journal of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies on the topic of teacher retention. Teacher retention, teacher shortages, and teacher turnover have dominated education policy discussions in recent years. Fears surrounding teacher staffing were a primary driver of the salary increases and other provisions in Missouri’s recent, sweeping education bill (Senate Bill 727). While most discussions on the topic focus on out-of-school factors, such as pay, our paper focused on in-school factors. We were interested in exploring what school leaders themselves can do to improve teacher retention.

This is not to say that salary, benefits, and other factors are not important in keeping people in a job. Rather, we simply recognized that work conditions also matter. Generally, people are much more willing to stay at a job when they feel supported, they like their work, and they see opportunities for growth. The same is true in education.

In prior research, we identified five in-school factors that influence teacher retention: positive school culture, supportive administration, strong professional development, mentoring programs, and classroom autonomy. Through interviews with school principals, we explored how school leaders can leverage these five factors to improve teacher retention.

While our paper does not delve into the broader policy debates regarding the teacher labor force, it does raise an important idea that policymakers must keep in mind—government action is often limited in what it can accomplish. Let me explain.

The state can mandate higher teacher salaries, as it did in Senate Bill 727, but it cannot mandate better school culture. The culture must be established locally, by the leaders, the teachers, and the community of parents and students in the school. At best, government policies set the playing field for individual human action to take place, but the policies themselves cannot make a leader more supportive of faculty or improve personal relationships.

Given this reality, we must ask what conditions best promote positive school communities. What can legislators do to improve school culture? As I’ve suggested before, you do not drive excellence in academics, or school culture, via top-down policies. The best way to do this is through creating opportunities for excellence and for community to thrive. This is through choice. Through choice, leaders, teachers, parents, and students can choose the schools where they feel most accepted, supported, and encouraged to grow. Choice, of course, is not a silver bullet. There are no silver bullets. But it is the best mechanism we have that allows unique, happy, and successful school communities to flourish.

The KC Streetcar Still Isn’t Driving Economic Development

Posted on July 8, 2024January 13, 2026 by Patrick Tuohey

In 2016, my former colleague Joe Miller wrote a piece in which he pointed out that the Kansas City streetcar was not driving up market values in the transportation district in which it runs. Miller wondered why the rhetoric of policymakers was so divorced from actual economic data. He found his answer in a 2010 report from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA): “Few, if any, streetcar system operators seek information on their impact on economic activity, although most interviewed consider economic-related questions to be vital and desire further research on this topic.”

Fast forward to today and nothing has changed. Property assessment data received from Jackson County through an open records request show the aggregate annual market value of Kansas City’s downtown streetcar Transportation Development District (TDD) is largely growing at the same rate as the county as a whole.

In other words, the streetcar is still not driving economic development in any substantial way. Were that the case, you’d see market values in the TDD rising at a much faster rate, as properties are quickly snatched up and redeveloped to take advantage of all that commerce and excitement.

There may be arguments for expanding the Kansas City streetcar. But those arguments aren’t about transit (all the streetcar routes were once and could be again served much more economically by buses) and they aren’t about economic development. And because 66% of Missouri electricity is generated by coal, the streetcar isn’t green, either.

Unfortunately, as the FTA reported, few streetcar operators actually check to see if their claims are true. That remains the case in Kansas City.

A Closer Look at the Effects of a $15 Minimum Wage for Missouri

Posted on July 5, 2024January 13, 2026 by Grace Hearne

Who wouldn’t want to get a pay raise? Everyone would enjoy higher wages—but what if a raise meant fewer hours or even unemployment? Missouri voters will likely decide on an increase in the minimum wage that will phase in from $12.30 to $15.00 per hour by 2026. If the ballot measure is passed, the minimum wage will increase by $1.45 to $13.75 on January 1, 2025, and by $1.25 to $15.00 on January 1, 2026. While raising the minimum wage may seem beneficial for low-income workers, once businesses fully adjust to the minimum wage increase, low-income and low-skilled workers are likely to be worse off.

Similar to Missouri’s potential $15.00 minimum wage, Seattle’s minimum wage ordinance passed in 2014 phased in an increasing minimum wage in the City of Seattle from the state’s $9.47 minimum to $11 in 2014, $13 in 2016, and $15 in 2017. A 2017 study at the University of Washington found that the increase to $15 an hour resulted in low-skilled workers experiencing a reduction in hours worked or even job loss. This decrease in hours worked for low-skilled workers resulted in “a net loss of $74 per month.” A pay cut of $74 per month can have a significant impact on low-income workers. The study found that employers opted to replace low-skilled workers with higher-skilled workers who could perform the job more effectively and therefore warrant a wage equivalent to the new minimum wage.

Seattle’s experiences are just one example of how a minimum wage increase negatively affects low-income workers. California recently increased its minimum wage to $20 for fast-food workers, resulting in many workers suffering from a loss of income. Mark Harmsworth, director of the Small Business Center at the Washington Policy Center, said:

Sometimes, instead of a salary bump, many workers instead find their work hours cut or their jobs eliminated completely. For some employees, if they fall below a minimum hour threshold required for benefits, they lose benefits too.

Increasing the minimum wage is a misguided way to try and help workers. If policymakers and voters want to assist low-income workers, then increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit would be a better approach.

St. Charles County Council Approves Zoning Change for New Housing Development

Posted on July 3, 2024January 13, 2026 by Amanda Unverferth

On Monday, June 25, the St. Charles County Council passed Bill No. 5300. The bill rezones a total of just over 135 acres of land adjacent to the August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area from an agricultural district to residential districts of varying minimum lot sizes.

The request to amend the zoning map was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission in May. The request was submitted in order to accommodate the development of a new subdivision, the Highlands at Busch Wildlife. The bill is revised from an earlier proposal called Tall Tree. The Tall Tree zoning amendment request, which was denied by the Planning and Zoning Commission in June 2023, was a 556-lot proposal on about 355 acres. The new development is for only 120 lots, cutting down the number of homes in the development by over 75% while reducing acreage by around 60% compared to the original proposal.

The St. Charles County Council chambers were filled with disapproval from St. Charles residents and nearby O’Fallon neighbors. Residents expressed concerns about negative environmental impacts (see the Missouri Department of Conservation’s comments on p. 42–43 of the amendment request) and increased traffic along state highway DD. Nonetheless, the bill passed by a vote of 5–2. Interestingly, the councilman of District 3—the district where the Highlands at Busch Wildlife will be built—voted in favor of the bill. Following the bill’s passage, a portion of the dissenting public in attendance left the room, and some even shouted their displeasure at the council while doing so. It is not uncommon for current residents of a community to be opposed to new development in their area. However, is this new development really something the citizens of St. Charles and the surrounding communities should be so upset about?

A 2018 paper titled Supply Skepticism: Housing Supply and Affordability from NYU’s Furman Center addresses many of the concerns commonly expressed by residents about new development. The paper discusses how development—at any price point—can help improve overall housing affordability. Furthermore, development can also increase productivity and signal that the given community is a place where people want to live. This does not necessarily suggest that development should always happen anytime or anyplace. However, restricting housing supply is associated with numerous problems including increased racial segregation, decreased mobility, and slower economic growth.

While some St. Charles citizens may be dismayed by the passage of Bill No. 5300, hopefully the benefits of increased housing supply will become more evident over time. Who knows—maybe other communities around the state will even look to St. Charles as an example of how allowing the market supply of housing to move more freely can help meet the needs of their community.

Springfield Wants to Be Darn Sure Its Sales Tax Rate Doesn’t Ever Go Down

Posted on July 2, 2024January 13, 2026 by David Stokes

About fifteen years ago, Springfield voters approved a new sales tax to address its substantially underfunded police and fire pension system. (Show-Me Institute analysts wrote a lot about this issue.)

Fast forward to 2024, and that sales tax is up for renewal. However, because the pension system is much better funded now, city leaders don’t want to renew the 3/4 cent sales tax as it is. That would generate more money for the pension than it needs.

So Springfield leaders put a commission together to come up with ways to alter the tax revenue distributions before it goes to voters in November.

A Kinsley Gaffe is when politicians accidentally say something truthful they didn’t mean to. (This is the second such gaffe worth highlighting in Missouri in the past few months.) In this case, the statement is filtered through the media, I admit, but the reporter must have got the gist of it from local leaders:

The tax will sunset at the end of March 2025, hence why the city has been adamant to put a replacement tax on the November ballot to avoid a lapse in the sales tax that local shoppers would feel. (emphasis added)

A lapse that voters would feel? Meaning a tax reduction Springfield residents may actually like? Dear Lord, we certainly can’t have that. If they like the reductions, they may not vote to increase the tax when we want them to, Oh, the humanity.

The new proposal is for voters to keep a 1/4 cent sales tax for public safety—which can still include pension costs—and change the rest of the tax (1/2 cent) to fund “comprehensive plan capital and parks projects and neighborhood and community initiatives.” (More on that issue later.)

Springfield still has a defined-benefit pension plan for its public safety employees. It should have switched to a defined-contribution plan years ago. At least the city, according to the article, closed the old plan to new members several years ago and, presumably, replaced it with a less generous plan for new hires. That’s progress, but a defined-contribution plan for Springfield employees would have been better for the taxpayers and the city. Throwing tax dollars at the pension fund appears to have worked for now, but further change is needed. As former Show-Me Institute Chief Economist Joe Haslag wrote about the Springfield pension situation years ago: “The existing approach got Springfield into this situation. Some reform is needed to avoid the same problems in the future.”

How Fast Should Government Grow with Elias Tsapelas

Posted on July 2, 2024January 13, 2026 by Susan Pendergrass

Susan Pendergrass speaks with Elias Tsapelas, Director of State Budget and Fiscal Policy at the Show-Me Institute, about his recent report, “Missouri’s Hancock Amendment: A Primer.” They discuss the historical context and significance of the Hancock Amendment, its impact on Missouri’s fiscal policy, what can be done to improve protections for Missouri taxpayers, and more.

Read the full report here.

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Produced by Show-Me Opportunity