RALEIGH — The core question in North Carolina politics is a simple one: How can state government build a foundation for sustained, broad-based economic growth?

If jobs are plentiful and incomes are rising, other problems become easier to address. Individuals and families are better able to meet their needs and accomplish their goals. Governments are better able to deliver the services their citizens want without the fiscal stress or higher taxes their citizens don’t want. Social disparities either shrink on their own or become easier to combat by concerted action.

Simple questions don’t always have simple answers, however. Economic growth is a complicated process. Businesses start, expand, or relocate to areas where their owners or managers expect to achieve the best rate of return. What informs such an expectation? There are many factors, some general and some particular to a person, place, or industry.

Fortunately, over the past quarter century, these issues have drawn the attention of hundreds of social scientists representing a diverse array of backgrounds, disciplines, and personal views. They have published hundreds of studies in peer-reviewed academic journals that probe the potential causes of state economic growth.

These researchers weren’t trying to reason by anecdote. They didn’t just eyeball a few numbers from a few years and draw hasty conclusions. Instead, they constructed complex equations that modeled state economies. Holding some factors constant, they looked for statistically significant links between other factors and economic measures such as job creation, wage growth, or business starts.

As you might expect, the results of these scholarly investigations weren’t uniform. Different models produced different outcomes. But as the work continued, scholars learned from each other. They ran a variety of statistical tests to see if their conclusions were robust. And they sought to replicate earlier results.

To make a long and fascinating story necessarily short, some 700 such studies have been published since 1990. As a whole, they suggest that a solid foundation for sustained economic growth depends on four walls:

— Tax policy. States grow faster when their overall tax burdens are low (that’s what 61 percent of the relevant studies show) and when their tax codes rely less on taxes that depress capital formation and business investment, such as corporate income taxes and personal income taxes on dividends and capital gains.

• Regulatory policy. States grow faster when households and businesses are freer to make their own decisions and strike their own deals, according to 68 percent of the relevant studies. Rules that inhibit competition and make it difficult to enter new markets or professions damage growth. So do rules imposed without rigorous cost-benefit analysis. It is, indeed, the state’s job to protect our health, safety, and natural resources through sensible regulation. But if you spend a billion dollars a year to produce a million dollars worth of benefit, you are doing more harm than good.

• Education. States where students obtain more and better education tend to be states where economic growth is stronger. That’s the finding of 58 percent of the relevant studies. Take care when interpreting that finding, however. Only 32 percent of studies find that states grow faster when they spend more tax money on schools, colleges, and universities. Most of the time, higher-spending states don’t gain enough additional educational value to offset the damaged imposed by the higher taxes. The key here is to get a bigger bang for the buck.

• Infrastructure. States with well-constructed, well-maintained public assets such as highways, airports, and water/sewer systems tend to grow faster, according to 69 percent of the relevant studies. Again, interpret carefully. In 56 percent of the studies, higher spending on infrastructure doesn’t boost growth. Politicians can — and frequently do — waste money even when doing valuable things, such as building roads or schools.

A solid foundation for economic growth requires all four of these walls (as well as a sound footing of law and order to ensure that life, liberty, and property are protected and contracts enforced). North Carolina has made progress in each area. Let’s keep heading in the right direction.