The list of former and current GOP governors who are running or probably running in the 2016 presidential race currently stands at Huckabee, Bush, Walker, Christie, Perry, and Jindal. As to the question about which one of these candidates had the best economic growth in his state during his term(s) in office, the metric must account for the fact each governed in a unique time. Consequently, the performance metric is to take the ratio of the change in state and U.S. average real per capita GDP during the full-year terms in office. In other words, how many fold higher -- or lower -- was each governor’s real per capita GDP performance compared to the corresponding national performance? A couple of notes must accompany the results. The latest available data is for 2013, so current governors cannot (yet) have their 2014 performance included. For Huckabee, whose governorship in Arkansas started in mid-1996, the analysis needs to start in 1997 because there is a...(Read Full Post)