A wider race? Interstate competition across health and welfare programs

Does interstate competition reduce welfare generosity? Most analyses of this question focus on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefit levels. The welfare-reducing logic of interstate Competition should apply to all redistributive programs, however. We test for competitive effects more generally, examining several measures of welfare generosity for AFDC, Medicaid, and Supplemental Security Income-State (SSI-S) policy. We find evidence of interstate competition across multiple programs and measures over which states have authority. We also find variation in the effects that is consistent with variation in political debates across the programs.