To his credit, Haslag doesn’t offer an easy explanation for Missouri’s laggard pattern. He is chief economist for the Show-Me Institute, which favors tax cuts, but taxes alone don’t explain how we got to 48th place.

California and Oregon, Haslag notes, are among the highest-tax states, but both make the top 10 for long-term economic growth. Alaska, with no income tax and plenty of oil revenue, ranks 40th, not far ahead of Missouri.

“I wish I had a clear and definitive answer for you,” Haslag told me. “I am 99 percent sure that it’s an amalgam of a lot of stuff.”

Was Missouri doomed by its lack of oil and gas? North Dakota, Texas and South Dakota had the fastest growth since 1997, so natural resources definitely help, but Oregon placed fourth without much of an energy industry.

Did Haslag simply choose a period when the state lost much of its traditional manufacturing base, including the Ford plant in Hazelwood and Chrysler plants in Fenton? That’s certainly true, but aside from Michigan, other Rust Belt states have done better than Missouri.