The way I understand it, economy buildings multiply your tax values on that one planet. Since tax values are derived directly from population, they're more effective on a high population planet. That's why I always turn my highest PQ world into my econ capital.

And here's a few fixes for a crappy economy:

1) More people: More people = more tax money
2) More Trade Routes: Trade routes provide a constant and maintenence-less source of money, and are the easiest way to get more cash
3) Econ Starbases Along Trade Routes: Econ starbases don't directly change the revenue of a planet, they only boost the revenue of trade routes.
4) Mine Econ Resources: Fairly obvious one, but added here for completeness.
5) Change to a Better Government: The oft overlooked solution to this problem, better goverments offer better econ bonuses. My last game went a whole lot smoother once someone mentioned this in IRC.

-Dewar

Another one:

- More Morale = more people = more taxes. Mine Yellow Resources.

I'm a little confused on how the Trade bonuses on Economic Starbases work. I'm not sure which of the three possibilities below actually apply, and any help would be appreciated.

1. If the path of a trade route (at any point) falls into the influence sphere of the Economic Starbase, the bonus applies to all freighters using that specific trade route, or...

2. If the home planet of the trade route falls into the influence sphere of the Economic Starbase, the bonus applies to all trade routes that originate from that planet, or...

3. The influence sphere of an Economic Starbase has no bearing. Once you add a Trade bonus to an Economic Starbase, ALL trade routes receive the bonus.

I'm hoping it's #3.

Thanks!