The recession that began in late 2007 severely reduced state tax revenue and increased demand for many public services …

provision and production of public services; (2) better alignment of the costs and benefits of government for a diverse … citizenry; (3) better fits between public goods and their spatial characteristics; (4) increased competition, experimentation …, and innovation in the public sector; (5) greater responsiveness to citizen preferences; and (6) more transparent …

Contrary to simple theoretical predictions, previous empirical research has found that state government public spending … preferences for public goods and intergovernmental grant receipts, and this correlation has likely biased the existing literature … demonstrate that constituent private income and grants have similar effects on public spending. …