Tags:
The Economy,
Top 5 Least,
Africa,
South America
Sources: Fraser Institute, Economic Freedom of the World: 2012 Annual Report.
List Notes: Data is for the year 2010. 144 countries are included in the survey. The key ingredients of determining overall economic freedom are: 1) Personal choice. 2) Voluntary exchange coordinated by markets. 3) Freedom to enter and compete in markets. 4) Protection of persons and their property from aggression by others.
The Economic Freedom Index specifically measures the degree
of economic freedom present in five major areas: [1] Size of Government; [2] Legal
System and Security of Property Rights; [3] Sound Money; [4] Freedom to Trade
Internationally; [5] Regulation. Within the five major areas, there are 24 components in the index. Many
of those components are themselves made up of several sub-components. In total,
the index comprises 42 distinct variables. Each component and sub-component is
placed on a scale from 0 to 10 that reflects the distribution of the underlying data.
The sub-component ratings are averaged to determine each component. The component
ratings within each area are then averaged to derive ratings for each of the
five areas. In turn, the five area ratings are averaged to derive the summary rating for
each country.