Federal Regulation and State Enterprise Index, 2017

The federal regulation and state enterprise (FRASE) index ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia according to the impact of federal regulation on private-sector industries in each state’s economy. A ranking of 1 indicates the highest level of impact of federal regulation on a state’s economy, whereas a ranking of 51 means the lowest. The FRASE index uses the FRASE score to determine each state’s rank. A state’s FRASE score represents the degree of impact federal regulation can have on a state’s economy relative to federal regulation’s impact on the national economy. While federal regulations apply uniformly across the country, they affect each state differently because every state’s economy comprises a unique mix of industries. Federal regulations often target a specific industry, which in turn means that the states where that industry is relatively important will be affected more by those targeted regulations. The 2017 FRASE release uses RegData 3.0 to quantify industry level federal regulation and data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis for individual industry percentage of state GDP.