Do multimember districts lead to free-riding?

We studied the effects of districting on intergovernmental aid by state governments to local governments in the United States. We found that metropolitan areas receive relatively more aid when represented in the state legislature by an at-large delegation than when divided into single-member districts. This suggests that the free-riding that may occur with at-large representation is more than counterbalanced by other factors. The estimated effects are robust to the effects of other confounding factors as well as the choice of estimators.