TITLE:
Economic Freedom, Migration and Income Change among U.S. Metropolitan Areas
AUTHORS:
J. Matthew Shumway
KEYWORDS:
Economic Freedom, Migration, Income Change, U.S. Metropolitan Regions
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.6 No.1,
February
13,
2018
ABSTRACT: Even though metropolitan area governments have no control over state level
monetary, labor, or fiscal policies, they are able to enact policies designed to
enhance local living conditions—however determined. Such policies include
local taxes, labor and wage policies, and regulations that can differ substantially
from other metropolitan areas even within the same state. Collectively
such policies create differing levels of economic freedom, as measured by
standardized indices. We examine differences in levels of economic freedom
across United States metropolitan areas and explore how these differences affect
migration patterns and local aggregate and per capita income changes.
We find that those metropolitan areas with higher levels of economic freedom
tend to experience net in-migration and positive changes in aggregate and per
capita income, although the balance between in-state and out-of-state migration
confounds these patterns.