This paper presents the first-ever comprehensive ranking of the American states on their public policies affecting individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. We develop and justify our ratings and aggregation procedure on explicitly normative criteria, defining individual...

What explains cross-national differences in the fiscal impact of government, including the size of the welfare state? Standard explanations center on citizen and government ideology and ethnic heterogeneity, with a smaller role for institutions such as majoritarianism, presidentialism, and...

This paper investigates the existence of a second dimension of state policy ideology orthogonal to the traditional left-right dimension: civil libertarianism-communitarianism. It argues that voter attitudes toward nonviolent acts that are sometimes crimes, particularly weapons and drugs...

As economic conditions change, so do voters’ priorities. During economic recession or crisis, economic policy and management dominate voters’ concerns, and parties with a clear ideological “brand” on the traditional, left-right, socioeconomic spectrum are best placed to attract votes....

Federalism can be a conflict-prevention mechanism, but some political scientists and economists have also endorsed certain features of the system as being likely to establish proper market incentives for economic growth. Most developing countries have ignored economists' recommendations for...

Why have richer U.S. states become more Democratic and poorer states more Republican? I find that this phenomenon actually reflects cost of living, driven by residential building restrictions. Such restrictions have come under intense scrutiny from economists in recent years. By making housing...