today, Aggreko announced latest assessment State Economic Outlook and Economic Performance, by Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Jonathan Williams.
I have documented the futility of the RSPS Economic Outlook Index hereand here.
Recently, I used RSPS rankings as of 2019 to predict state-level GDP growth and compared them to the Beacon Hill Institute State Competitiveness Index and the Cato Institute Fiscal Report Card.Analysis is here. I copied Table 1 for state level GDP.
Columns 7-9 are relevant. The coefficient should be negative and statistically significant. Column 7 includes state-specific variables such as log population density (ldensity), precipitation (humid), temperate (moderate), and distance from water (distance). Column 8 includes state-level fixed effects, while column 9 includes state-level and time fixed effects.
Given that the higher the ranking (#1, #2…), the faster GDP is expected to grow, the coefficient of RSPS should be negative. The hypothesized coefficient is not statistically significant only in specifications that include state characteristics.
