Knowledge Bank

While the research community is often very concerned with the distributional effect of public policy decisions, the geographic distribution of the affected populations is often overlooked. This paper argues that seemingly geographically neutral policies have spatial consequences and that the choice of how to measure them is important. We suggest that maps produced by geographical information systems (GIS) provide a powerful tool for communicating these ideas to policy makers. We further suggest that GIS supplemented by spatial statistics yield geographic information that can perform a valuable function in policy debates. We use the recent proposed changes in Medicaid expenditures in Ohio to illustrate how geographic information provides insights into the spatial consequences of these changes by introducing a simple method to weight the impact of expenditure changes.