To date, attempts to overcome the temptation of policymakers to create or expand business subsidy programs has been spotty at best, even if there have been some short-term cessation of certain tax credits. Overall, however, the strategy of aiming at individual programs or tax credits has generally been an ineffective tool at overcoming the real collective action problem at the root of unhealthy, mercantilist competition between states that corporate welfare creates.
Only a universal approach is likely to solve this problem in an effective way. Only such an approach could create the environment in which healthy competition would predominate over the unhealthy forms of competition discussed in this study. With a new crop of governors and legislators coming into office in 2019 — many of whom are aware of the problems inherent in these sorts of unproductive subsidies — the time may be near when a number of states can compose a truly united front against select business subsidies by adopting a cease-fire treaty like the one outlined in this study.