A Short Empirical Note on State Misery Indexes

Ryan Murphy, Southern Methodist University

Abstract

This paper constructs state level Misery Indexes, incorporating recent data on Regional Pricing Parities. As an application, it draws the Phillips curve derived from a panel of fifty states plus the District of Columbia in the years 2008-2011. A state level Misery Index will allow economists and the public to evaluate the overall macroeconomic picture of a regional economy, just as the Misery Index currently allows in the national and international context.