Abstract
Industrial revenue bonds have been criticized either because too much IRB money funded retail or commercial projects rather than industrial or manufacturing projects or because large profitable corporations were the major beneficiaries of the bonds. These criticisms, however, were often supported by random citations of questionable cases rather than a thorough investigation of bond usage.
This paper investigates IRB usage in Kansas between 1962 and 1983. It particularly focuses on bond usage in the state's largest cities where bonds are categorized by purpose and by recipient to determine the pattern of economic development and the major beneficiaries. This study found that many of the criticisms of industrial revenue bonds were applicable to the Kansas pattern of usage.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.