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| EST. READ TIME 2 MIN.Canada Ranks Among Top 10 Jurisdictions Worldwide for Economic Freedom
The Fraser Institute’s annual report, Economic Freedom of the World, measures the economic freedom (levels of personal choice, ability to enter markets, security of privately owned property, rule of law, etc.) by analyzing the policies and institutions of 157 countries and territories. It is the world’s premier measurement of economic freedom, using 42 distinct variables to create an index, ranking countries based on economic freedom, which is measured in five areas: size of government, legal structure and security of property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation of credit, labour and business.
According to the report, based on 2013 statistics (the most recent year of available data), the top 10 most economically free jurisdictions are Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Jordan, Ireland, Canada, with the United Kingdom and Chile tied for 10th. The United States, once considered a bastion of economic freedom, now ranks 16th in the world after being as high as second in 2000.
The 10 lowest-ranked countries are Angola, Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Argentina, Syria, Chad, Libya, Republic of Congo, and Venezuela. Some despotic countries such as North Korea and Cuba can’t be ranked due to lack of data.
Globally, the average economic freedom score rose slightly to 6.86 out of 10 from 6.84 last year.
The report also includes a chapter examining the link between a country’s level of economic freedom and its citizens’ life satisfaction, or happiness. The chapter, Economic Freedom, Individual Perceptions of Life Control and Life Satisfaction, finds that living in an economically free country plays a greater role in one’s life satisfaction than does income, age, employment or even a country’s political system.
**Minor recalculations of the index after printing of the report have moved Chile to 10th place (tied with UK) from 13th place and Zimbabwe to 149th from 150th in the index. The corrected scores and ranks are available in the data set.
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James Gwartney
Professor of Economics, Florida State UniversityJames D. Gwartney was a Professor of Economics and the Gus A. Stavros Eminent Scholar at Florida State University. He wasthe coauthor of Economics: Private and Public Choice (Cengage/South-Western Press, 2021), a widely used principles of economics text that is now in its 17th edition. He was also coauthor of an economics primer, Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know about Wealth and Prosperity (St. Martin’s Press, 2016). His publications appeared in both professional journals and popular media such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He served as Chief Economist of the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress during 1999–2000. In 2004, he was the recipient of the Adam Smith Award of the Association of Private Enterprise Education for his contribution to the advancement of free-market ideals. He was a past President of the Southern Economic Association and the Association for Private Enterprise Education. His Ph.D. in economics was from the University of Washington.… Read more -
Robert A. Lawson
Clinical Professor in Economics and Director, Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom, Southern Methodist University
Robert A. Lawson is Clinical Professor in Economics, Jerome M. Fullinwider Centennial Chair in Economic Freedom, and Director of theBridwell Institute for Economic Freedom in the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. He earned his B.S. in economics from the Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in economics from Florida State University. A Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute, he has numerous professional publications in journals such as Public Choice, Cato Journal, Journal of Labor Research, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, and the European Journal of Political Economy. Prof. Lawson has served as President of the Association of Private Enterprise Education and is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.… Read more -
Joshua C. Hall
Chair of the Department of Economics, West Virginia UniversityJoshua C. Hall, Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute, is an Associate Dean of Research, Chair of the Department ofEconomics, and Professor of Economics, in the John Chambers College of Business & Economics at West Virginia University. He earned his B.B.A. and M.A. in economics from Ohio University and his Ph.D. from West Virginia University. Prior to returning to his alma mater, he was the Elbert H. Neese, Jr. Professor of Economics at Beloit College. He is currently serving as Part President of the Association of Private Enterprise Education and is also a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute. He is the author of over 70 articles in journals such as Contemporary Economic Policy, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Labor Research, Southern Economic Journal, Public Finance Review, and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.… Read more -
Hans Pitlik
Hans Pitlik is a Research Group Coordinator of the department of Macroeconomics and European Economic Policy and Senior Researcher inPublic Economics at the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO), Vienna, Austria. He received a doctoral degree in Economics (1996) and a postdoctoral lecturer qualification (habilitation) in 2004 from the University of Stuttgart-Hohenheim (Germany) to which he is also still affiliated. He worked on constitutional economics, fiscal federalism, and on the political economy of market-oriented policy reforms. The focus of his recent research is on determinants of individual attitudes towards economic policies and economic freedom. He has published articles in Public Choice, European Journal of Political Economy, Kyklos, and Public Finance Review.… Read more -
Dulce M. Redin
Dulce M. Redín is an Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. She receivedher doctoral degree in Economics from the University of Navarra (Spain) in 2013. She has been visiting researcher at Columbia University and Georgetown University. Her research focuses on the relationship between formal and informal economic institutions and international finance. Her publications have appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics.… Read more