Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan, in their 1980 book The Power to Tax, hypothesize that “the potential for fiscal exploitation varies inversely with the number of competing governmental units in the inclusive territory.” This paper tests that theory at the local level using data for US...

The Economic Freedom of North America (EFNA) index, which ranks the states, was first produced in 2002 and has been updated annually since 2010. The 2016 report was its twelfth edition. The EFNA index has been cited in over 200 academic articles, book chapters, and policy papers. We provide an...

Some immigration opponents claim that immigrants import bad institutions and policies from their country of origin into their new home country. We argue just the opposite—namely, that immigrants are more likely to self-select into countries with better institutions than those in their home...

This paper is the first attempt to produce an economic freedom index for local economies in the U.S. It provides a more comprehensive measure of the restrictions government places upon economic freedom compared to simple fiscal measures like total government spending or revenue. That makes it a...