Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the correlation between the degree of economic freedom in state institutions and industry employment and then determine how these correlations relate to economic growth. Design/methodology/approach – The authors find the correlation between...

In the cross-country literature, cognitive skills are robust predictors of economic growth. We investigate claims by psychologists that the same is true at the state level. In a variety of specifications using four proxies for average state IQ used in the psychology literature, little evidence...

This paper explores the factors that contribute to long-run economic growth in U.S. metropolitan areas, with particular attention given to government finance variables. Unlike previous work that examines only a sub-sample of the largest areas, this paper uses a new comprehensive data set for all...

Oates' (1972) decentralization theorem holds that local governments will do a superior job at providing the efficient quantity of public goods. Brennan and Buchanan (1980) suggest that "the potential for fiscal exploitation varies inversely with the number of competing governmental units in the...

There has been an international trend towards shifting the provision of public services down to lower levels of government. That decentralization has increased the relative importance of local governments. This paper examines the relationship between spending by those local governments and...