The impact of sports stadiums on localized commercial activity: Evidence from a Business Improvement District.

This analysis exploits the relocation of a professional baseball team from downtown Atlanta to a pre‐existing Community Improvement District (CID) in suburban Cobb County to estimate the impact of the stadium development on commercial property values. The existence of multiple CIDs in the metro‐Atlanta area provides the opportunity to estimate a counterfactual comparison absent the stadium to draw causal inference regarding the stadium's impact on economic activity using the synthetic control method. Estimates do not identify increased commercial property values from the stadium development, which is consistent with past studies that find little to no positive impact on economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]