82 pages

Pacific Research Institute (San Francisco)

Publication Date: September/2008

Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-934276-10-5
Price: $ 24.95

Economists agree that institutional factors play a key role in a country’s economic performance. The evidence that institutions and economic policies matter at the country-level is hard to ignore. East Germany versus West Germany and North Korea versus South Korea are stark examples. The tremendous success of Ireland and Iceland show that the benefits of pro-growth supply-side tax reforms are not limited to comparisons with communist dictatorships. Economic theory really works: when investors receive higher after-tax returns, they channel more of their funds to that region. When employees enjoy lower marginal tax rates, they work more.

What is true at the national level holds true at the state level as well. The Pacific Research Institute, in association with Forbes magazine, has released another edition of its U.S. Economic Freedom Index, one of the few scholarly analyses and rankings of U.S. states based on how friendly or unfriendly state government policies are toward free enterprise and consumer choice.... The results are obvious but worth repeating: those states ranked higher in objective measures of economic freedom tend to have higher growth rates in income, employment, and population.

• U.S. Economic Freedom Index: 2004 Report
• The U.S. Economic Freedom Index: 2004 Report