The most recent Economic Freedom of the World Report, published by the Fraser Institute, numbers are in, and the news isn’t good. Global economic freedom around the world has declined from a global overall average score of 7.0 to 6.84. The economists who develop the research claim that this wipes out about 10 years of economic progress, and this is bad for everyone. This is particularly for the world’s poorest human beings. The concept of economic freedom, and attempts to measure it empirically, comes from Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman in the 1970s. He wanted a measure of prosperity to inform helpful policies and institutions. The report scores economic freedom on a scale of zero to 10, where zero indicates that there is no economic freedom and 10 indicates perfect economic freedom. There are five areas of economic freedom measured: sound currency, the size and scope of regulation, legal system…
This story is from Common Good issue 10.