Personal and Economic Freedom

[bluffmanxx]

Which states are the most free -- and least free?

Think tanks have long ranked not just countries, but U.S. states, according to their economic freedom, and Reporters Without Borders grades nations on their respect for press freedom. Until recently, though, nobody has really tried to assess the attitude toward personal freedom prevailing at the state level, or to really get a handle on the best place to live in the United States for people who want the government to just leave them alone. A new report from George Mason University's Mercatus Center takes on that job, finishing the work started last summer by Reason magazine.

In Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom, William Ruger, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas State University, and Jason Sorens, an assistant professor of Political Science at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, offer \"the first-ever comprehensive ranking of the American states on their public policies affecting individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres.\" Ruger and Sorens very explicitly ground their understanding of freedom in a live-and-let-live understanding of the concept, in which people are able \"to dispose of their lives, liberties, and property as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.\"

In economic terms, that translates into assessments of burdensome regulations, high taxes, restrictive licensing laws, protection for property rights and the like.

Personal freedom scores depend on treatment of victimless activities such as gambling and prostitution, and restrictions on alcohol and tobacco. Asset forfeiture and violations of free-speech rights (campaign finance regulation) are also considered. Also included are policies toward marijuana, laws respecting same-sex relationships, gun control and regulation of education outside government schools.

[spaceboy761]

How is Nevada 24th being the only state with legalized prostitution and gambling (stated criteria)? Also, the small number of states that recognize gay marriage (or at least tried to at one point) are all in the bottom ten. And Alaska is somehow 31st?

Yeeeeeeeah, I'm calling bullshit on this one. Then again, who am I to argue with an assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo?!

[spaceboy761]

The index seems fairly dominated by fiscal freedom, which is the only explanation for these rankings. This is what happens when you hand your statistical analysis to a pair of Political Science PhD's and not someone who managed to get a grade HIGHER than a C+ in freshman math.

Also, nice regression analysis. Did you get that out of a Crackerjack box?

In case you haven't noticed, economics and finance grad students have mild trust issues with PoliSci and government grad students.

[bluffmanxx]

The index seems fairly dominated by fiscal freedom, which is the only explanation for these rankings. This is what happens when you hand your statistical analysis to a pair of Political Science PhD's and not someone who managed to get a grade HIGHER than a C+ in freshman math.

Also, nice regression analysis. Did you get that out of a Crackerjack box?

In case you haven't noticed, economics and finance grad students have mild trust issues with PoliSci and government grad students.

actually there is more to personal freedom than gays, prostitutes and drugs. pretty sure the high marks in states like california and NY on those issues are offset by property rights and other restrictive laws.

the article does breakdown both personal and economic freedom if you want to compare the two separately.

[spaceboy761]

Maybe using real ratio measures such as gross/real/disposable income or some breakdown of how people spend their time would have helped. You just can't produce an artificial index based on your own opinions of what freedom really is.

It's a constant battle in the social sciences, but the more you quantify, the clearer the results usually turn out. These guys didn't quantify very much. They tried to use some hacked-up binary variable (the 0/.5/1 thing) to quantify some of the more qualitative stuff, but that's a bad shortcut. At that point, they should change methodologies and maybe use a survey analysis of how people spend their time. Yeah, OK... horseback riding on public beaches is legal is some states, but how much is that real going to effect my life from day to day? Without some type of a survey question like, "If it were legal in NY, how many hours a year would you choose to spend horseback riding on the beach?", the authors just make assumptions based on nothing. The horseback riding thing is of course is deliberately dopey example, but you get the idea.

Gay marriage is not recognized in NY. Some people may be gay and care about this a hell of a lot more than the fact that they can't have property fences higher than 5 feet. Some people (like my dad) could seriously give a shit about the legal status of "fairy boys" as he calls them, but really care about the fact that the neighbors behind them just installed an above-ground pool and the county fence regulations prevent thenm from building the fence high enough to not be forced to stare at the neighbors' flabby, pale, mostly naked bodies for five months at a time.

[bluffmanxx]

all i know is that for most folks quality of life goes up when they don't have to put every penny into their house payment. being a slave to your house has to be a huge factor and because of that and the endless regulation, california deserves it's place near the bottom of the list.

not having any disposable income limits personal freedom in many ways IMO, so weighing that more heavily makes sense to me.

[spaceboy761]

Percentage of disposal/gross income is huge and looking at how people spend whatever disposable income they do have can tell you volumes. If they weighted their freedom rankings based on how people spend disposable income, now we'd be getting somewhere!

[Niccivan]

lol...yay for FL coming in at #22.

[Moab]

Gee .. I thought Alaska was the land of frozen milk and honey .. with no taxes, huge oil rebates for residents, low gas prices and a sex pot governor. They rank 31 just 3 above the other savior of the republican party Louisiana's, Bobby (Brady) Jindal's, state.