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That could bode well for some provinces and poorly for the U.S. The U.S. has slipped on economic freedom measures for several reasons, the report says.

These include regulatory uncertainty around credit markets after the global financial crisis of 2008. The U.S.’s war on terror had also undermined judicial independence and there have been several U.S. Supreme Court decisions undermining property rights.

The study rates countries, states and provinces by a series of classically conservative benchmarks, including the size of government, taxation policy, government regulation, respect for the rule of law, sound monetary policy, ease of trade and respect for property rights.

Topping the list were Alberta, Saskatchewan, Delaware, Texas and Nevada.

And although Mr. McMahon said Canada was steadily improving over the U.S., there are provinces rounding out the bottom of the list as well.

In other words, U.S. states tended to score more poorly, but Canadian provinces displayed much more variability.

New Brunswick, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Quebec were rated the least economically free.

“People tend to move out of economically less-free states. In my home provinces of Nova Scotia and P.E.I., that should be a telling lesson,” Mr. McMahon said, noting the problems those provinces have maintaining their current populations.

The first version of the index was published in the peer-reviewed European Journal of Political Economy in 2003.