More Fortune 500 companies are located in Texas than in any
other state. Texas successfully used low taxes and minimal regulations as bait
to recruit companies like Tesla and Oracle. The state promoted these
“advantages” in ads highlighting their “free-market” environment and
criticizing the "tax and spend policies of liberal leadership" in
Democrat-run states. Four million people migrated to Texas over the past
ten years. Our economic models predict a reversal, however.
State of Texas corporations on the Fortune 1000 list generate $2.2 trillion in revenue, $158 billion in profit. They have a market value of $3.8 trillion and employ 2.5 million people nationwide.
We continue to believe this increased corporate presence in Texas imposes a tax on the nation as a whole. Texas allows anyone 21 or older to carry handguns without training or licenses, and maintains lower gun purchase age limits. Beyond the recent abortion bill, which allows people to sue those who "aid and abet" an abortion and receive at least $10,000 in successful cases, the state also blocked public schools from requiring masks, taxing healthcare systems nationwide.
These policies are a hidden tax on both the wellbeing and the
actual finances of US citizens, imposed by a single state. The national monetary
impacts are real - “schools spend hundreds of millions of dollars on security,
building reinforcements, trainings and drills, and the federal government
spends more millions for campus officers. To accommodate them, municipalities
across the country spend a fortune on police and equipment..” Recent events
show the ineffectiveness of these expenditures.
Changes in the social environment do not bode well for the
state. School shootings have increased and are unfortunately predicted to
continue, given lax gun laws in the State. These will have an increasingly
negative impact on Texas corporations, businesses and groups.
We believe growing in-state gun violence leads to elevated levels of anxiety on the part of employees. This
increased level of concern will negatively impact productivity. Many employees
will be more often focused on the safety of their children than employees in
other states.
This will cause interruptions in concentration. These distractions
impact workers and managers, even if sporadically, resulting in lower corporate
output. Lower output levels lead to lower profits, other things equal, relative
to corporate headquarters located outside of the state.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) mandates that companies
understand the impact they have on all aspects of society, including economic,
social, and environmental (ESG) impacts. “To engage in CSR means that, in the
ordinary course of business, a company is operating in ways that enhance
society and the environment instead of contributing negatively to them.”
Corporations headquartered in Texas who do not oppose lax
gun laws will, under CSR, be tied to the “racism, anti-immigration hatred,
misogyny, war imagery, neo-Confederate fantasies, and cartoonishly vile
versions of masculinity” that Texas gun laws facilitate. Given the fact that
these positions are contrary to the desires of most Americans, they will also
be tied to an anti-democratic desire for minority rule, and the desire to
eliminate voting rights and the rights of “women, immigrants, Black people,
queer people, trans people – all of whom have been targeted by mass shootings
in recent years.”
Other CSR and ESG factors, including international issues, a reevaluation of the value of fossil fuels, and increased domestic political instability, will also lead to Texas being a less attractive destination for corporations over the years.
We will provide our estimate of the dollar value of this gun related revenue and profit loss in the coming weeks.
The Impact of Gun Laws on Corporate Profits and ESG Performance in Texas. https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5786826/the-impact-gun-laws-on-corporate-profits-esg PDF Report May 2023. Region: United States - Creative Investment Research. ID: 5786826
Also see: https://www.researchandmarkets.com/s/creative-investment-research