Fraser Institute’s Alan Dowd on the importance of economic freedom

From Cafe Hayek

"Economic freedom is one of the main drivers of prosperity and growth, and the evidence shows that states with low levels of economic freedom reduce the ability of their citizens to prosper economically, while states with high levels of economic freedom maximize their citizens’ ability to prosper economically.

Consider that in the most economically free U.S. states, the average per-capita GDP in 2012 (the most recent year of available data) was about $55,000, while in the least economically free states it was just $48,000. In fact, the jurisdictions in the least-free quartile on what my colleagues call “the world-adjusted, all-government index” had an average per-capita GDP of just $10,079, compared to $57,269 for the most-free quartile."