Two Charts on the Reservation Economic Freedom Index (REFI)
A quick look at how rules align with income
“Economic freedom is the soil. Prosperity is the harvest.”
What happens when rules lower the friction of daily life? People start projects. Capital shows up. Incomes rise. Not always, not everywhere, not at the same speed. Often enough to matter.
I built the Reservation Economic Freedom Index to make that pattern visible. REFI turns a set of institutional features into a single score. Titles that can be used as collateral. Permits that take weeks, not months. Forums that resolve disputes on a calendar you can plan around. The index is not magic. It is a tool that allows us to compare places in a way that a busy judge or council member can use on Monday morning.
Figure 1. Median reservation household income by REFI quartile
Bar chart of median Native American household income by REFI quartile (Q1 least free to Q4 most free). Bars rise from Q1 to Q4.
Takeaway 1. Higher REFI scores align with higher household incomes in a clear, monotone pattern. The distance from the first bar to the fourth is not a rounding error. It is a difference people feel in rent money, in savings, in the choice to buy a truck for a small business.
Figure 2. REFI and median household income, reservation by reservation
Scatter of median Native American household income on the vertical axis against REFI on the horizontal axis, with a positive fitted trend.
Takeaway 2. The slope is positive. A point increase in REFI is associated with a $1,900 increase in median Native American household income.
Takeaway 3. The results are similar when considering the overall median reservation household income.
The scatter plot does not prove causation on its own, and I would not claim that here. It does support a familiar idea in economics. Better rules tend to coincide with better outcomes.
What REFI measures, in plain terms:
Ownership you can trust, so assets become collateral rather than paperweights.
Business entry that is rule-based, so an application has a path and a clock.
Enforceable agreements: clear forums, predictable timelines, and remedies that can be collected.
Governance that publishes the rulebook and follows it.
Openness to exchange and information, the oxygen of enterprise.
What this post does and does not claim
This is descriptive. It shows how REFI lines up with income. It does not establish causation. It points to margins where reform may pay. I will cover the causal work in a follow-up.
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