Suchergebnisse

Using state-level data from 1980-2010 we examine whether economic freedom, as measured by the Economic Freedom of North America Index, has had any impact in increasing or decreasing the ratio of median income for black households to the median income of white households. To our knowledge, there has been no research on racial income disparities and the role that economic freedom might have in alleviating or exacerbating the problem. We find evidence that economic freedom is associated with an increase in the racial income gap.

Using the measures of economic freedom developed by Karabegovic et al. (2003), we are able to create a dataset spanning the period 1981 to 2004 in order to investigate the nature of the relationship between economic freedom and economic growth for the fifty US states. Overall, we find a significant positive relationship between economic freedom and economic growth. However, not all components of economic freedom affect growth equally. [Copyright Elsevier B.V.]

Robust institutional change is difficult to achieve. However, it is more difficult for some countries than others. We use data on 69 countries between 1870 and 2000 to show that political instability does not always affect growth outcomes. We then develop a simple model to explain this fact in which the likelihood that "good" institutions are abandoned during periods of political uncertainty depends on the opportunity cost of doing so. We operationalize our model by using contract intensive money as a proxy for this initial investment in growth‐enhancing institutions. Cross‐sectional and panel growth regressions support the model's predictions.