Economic Freedom in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

This paper is a revised, updated, and expanded version of the rst economic freedom index for local economies in the U.S. (Stansel, 2013). It provides a more comprehensive measure of the restrictions government places upon economic freedom compared to simple scal measures like government spending or revenue. That makes it a valuable tool for a wide variety of academic and public policy researchers seeking to investigate the impact of government upon society. The two economic freedom indices of nations have stimulated a large body of such research, as have the state-level indices. There is a small and growing local-level literature reviewed herein. Like with the other two sets of indices, local economic freedom is found to be correlated with positive economic outcomes such as higher per capita income and higher population growth.