The Fraser Institute in Vancouver, Canada, just published, for 2024, its annual Economic Freedom of the World Report.
There are many ideas about what freedom means.
Economic freedom, which the Fraser Institute focuses on, is of key and central importance. It is about the extent to which individuals have control of their economic life.
It's about law that protects private property, having an honest court system that adjudicates disputes, that government power to interfere with and regulate enterprise is prudent and limited, that individuals and enterprises have freedom to do business not just at home but internationally, and that governments do not debase their national currency.
The Fraser Institute gathers data from various international institutions and measures these various factors that define economic freedom and compiles an index of economic freedom in 165 countries around the world.
The correlation between economic freedom in........