The Impact of Government Functional Responsibility on Local Expenditure

This article examines the variation in the number of functions performed by local governments and the impact of these functions on local expenditures in a national sample of communities with populations over 10,000 persons and located both inside and outside the country's Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The findings indicate that control over the least-common governmental functions has a significant effect on local expenditure and that this effect differs by type of community.