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Notes -
I haven't read the Hanania article and thus can't speak to his arguments, but if more economically libertarian states tend to have more abundant housing, then that seems to be the mechanism by which Americans come to preferring to live in such states. Revealed preference for economically libertarian states doesn't mean that someone is judging states on the basis of their economic policies and preferring to move to one that's more economically libertarian. Revealed preference means that states that are more economically libertarian tend to create conditions that cause more people to decide that moving there is a better decision than moving elsewhere. The abundance of housing could be one of them. So I wouldn't say that that's misleading.
This occurred to me as well.
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