The Quality of Legal Systems and Property Rights by State: A Ranking and Their Implications for Economic Freedom

Abstract

This paper constructs a new measure of the quality of the legal system and property rights by U.S. state, combining five pieces of data to develop a novel measure of institutional quality. It integrates this measure to the Economic Freedom of North America index to give a more complete subnational comparison of United States institutions. The quality of the legal system and property rights are measured to be strongest in the upper Midwest and northern New England, and weakest in the South and Hawaii. The integration of this data into Economic Freedom of North America has considerable implications for our understanding of economic freedom at the regional level.

Keywords: Economic Freedom, Economic Freedom of North America, Institutional Economics

JEL Classification: P10, P14, O43, R50