Utilizing data from the U.S. Census survey (2000) and the North American Economic Freedom Index (Karebegovic, McMahon, and Samida, 2004), this study evaluates the outcome of economic freedom on gross migration flows within the United States. The estimation process is to use a gravity model....

The effect that the components of the Economic Freedom of the World Index (Gwartney, Lawson, and Block, 2004) have on alternative measurements of well being is investigated. The objective is to observe the effect of trade policies and property rights on the quality of life using the Human...

Saving traditional small ‘mom and pop’ businesses has been a justification for political and court decisions preventing Wal-Mart from opening new stores virtually everywhere across the United States. We present the first rigorous econometric investigation of how Wal-Mart actually impacts the...

Baumol’s (1990) theory of productive and unproductive entrepreneurship is a significant recent contribution to the economics of entrepreneurship literature. He hypothesizes that entrepreneurial individuals channel their effort in different directions depending on the quality of prevailing...

Is capitalism contagious? Since WWI, global foreign policy has treated economic freedom/repression like a virus that spreads between countries. Most recently, the ?domino theory? of freedom has played prominently in U.S. foreign policy toward Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean during the...

Could bad weather be responsible for U.S. corruption? This paper argues that natural disasters create resource windfalls in the states they strike by triggering federally-provided natural disaster relief. Consistent with the theory that natural resource and foreign aid windfalls increase public...

To successfully coordinate natural disaster relief, society must solve Hayek’s “knowledge, problem” at three critical information nodes: (1) identification of disaster; (2) determination of what relief is needed and who needs which relief resources; and (3) evaluation of on-going relief...

We hypothesize the failure of government to protect the rights of individuals from violence committed by youths has led to the formation of youth gangs as protective agencies. Our theory predicts an opposite direction of causality between gang activity and violent crime than is widely accepted....

Previous literature stresses the importance of free media for economic development. By its nature TV, radio, and newspapers cross borders, allowing citizens to easily sample media from neighboring countries. This creates pressure for domestic reform and spreads media freedom between countries....