EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Economic freedom and employment growth in U.S. states

Thomas Garrett and Russell M. Rhine

No 2010-006, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Abstract: We extend earlier models of economic growth and development by exploring the effect of economic freedom on U.S. state employment growth. We find that states with greater economic freedom - defined as the protection of private property and private markets operating with minimal government interference - experienced greater rates of employment growth. In addition, we find that less restrictive state and national government labor market policies have the greatest impact on employment growth in U.S. states. Except for labor market policies, we find that state employment growth is influenced by state and local government policies, but not the policies of all levels of government, including the national government. Our results suggest that policy-makers concerned with employment should seriously consider the degree to which their own labor market policies, as well as those of the national government, may be limiting economic growth and development in their respective states.

Keywords: Employment; Economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2010/2010-006.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Economic freedom and employment growth in U.S. states (2011) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2010-006

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Scott St. Louis ().

 
Page updated 2025-04-01
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2010-006