http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploadedFiles/fraser-ca/Content/research-news/research/publications/economic-freedom-of-the-world-2011.pdf
Released today... some important highlights:
The concept of economic freedom, the key ingredients of economic freedom are:
• personal choice,
• voluntary exchange coordinated by markets,
• freedom to enter and compete in markets, and
• protection of persons and their property from aggression by others.
Hong Kong and Singapore, once again, occupy the top two positions. The other
nations in the top 10 are New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Chile,
United Kingdom, Mauritius, and the United States. The rankings of other major
countries include Germany (21st), Japan (22nd), Korea (30th), France (42nd), Spain
(54th), Italy (70th), Mexico (75th), Russia (81st), China (92nd), India (94th),
and Brazil (102nd). The ten lowest-rated countries are Chad, Burundi, Republic
of Congo, Guinea- Bissau, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Angola, Venezuela, Myanmar, and, again in last place, Zimbabwe.
Freedom and entitlement are largely different paradigms for thinking about the fundamentals of economic development. Depending on the balance between free choices and more coerced decisions, individual opportunities to learn, own, work, save, invest, trade, protect, and so forth could vary greatly across countries and over time. The empirical findings in this chapter suggest that fundamental freedoms are paramount to explain long-term economic growth. For a given set of exogenous conditions, countries that favor free choice—economic freedom and civil and political liberties—over entitlement rights are likely to achieve higher sustainable economic growth and to achieve many of the distinctive proximate characteristics of success identified by the Commission on Growth and Development (2008). In contrast, pursuing entitlement rights through greater state coercion is likely to be deceptive or self-defeating in the long run. These findings provide potentially important policy lessons for all countries. For developed countries, they suggest that prioritizing economic freedom over social entitlements could be an effective way to reform the welfare state and make it more sustainable and equitable in the long run. For middle-income countries (such as countries in the midst of the Arab Spring and in Asia and Latin America), they indicate that the quest for civil and political rights and for economic freedom could create the conditions for new social contracts. For low-income countries, they provide an opportunity to reflect on the achievements under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the potential role that economic freedom and other fundamental freedoms could play in a post-2015 MDG development agenda.
