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The purpose of this paper is to focus on the impact of economic freedom on entrepreneurial activity in the service sector. Specifically, the paper examines how economic freedom at the state level affects employment among North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) six-digit service industries.

The paper uses a fixed effects model to predict the effect of economic freedom on employment in each of the NAICS six-digit service industries. The paper uses the significance of the economic freedom coefficients to determine which industries grow and which shrink with increases in economic freedom.

The empirical findings reveal that economic freedom improves job growth for some, but not for all industries. Employment tends to grow in the six-digit industries that are categorized as finance and insurance, administrative and waste services, and professional and technical services. Employment in many of the health care and social assistance industries as well as accommodation and food services industries tends to fall with increases in economic freedom.

These results give a more detailed assessment of the influence of economic freedom on employment growth based on micro-level data. The results can be used by policy makers to better understand how changes in economic freedom influence the portfolio of industries that develop in their states.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the correlation between the degree of economic freedom in state institutions and industry employment and then determine how these correlations relate to economic growth.

The authors find the correlation between employment and economic freedom for each NAICS industry code and then calculate total employment in industries with positive correlation and negative correlations. The authors use these values in a GDP equation.

The authors find that employment growth in industries characterized by a negative correlation is associated with a decline in state per capita GDP. When the correlations between employment and economic freedom are positive, state per capita GDP tends to grow, even after accounting for overall economic freedom in the state.

Eliminating or reducing opportunities for firms to use government institutions to gain special treatment will lead to greater economic growth.

This paper allows the data to determine which industries potentially engage in productive and unproductive entrepreneurship.