ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the growth and relative size of New York's public sector during the 1980s and discusses the implications of this public sector size and growth for economic development in the 1990s. It suggests that the growth in public expenditures continued strong in the 1980s and that the government share in the New York economy remains among the highest in the nation. It is valuable to review the growth in New York's public sector in a context of the common theories of government growth and size. Real tax revenues in New York grew at a higher rate than in the rest of the United States in the 1980s and well above the real growth rates of the 1970s. The Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations periodically estimates the amount of revenue that a representative tax system would yield if applied in every state. Real per capita state and local government expenditures rose during the 1980s.
