The Heritage Foundation’s 2013 global Index of Economic Freedom generally demonstrates that the nations most successful in increasing their economic freedom (by reducing taxes and so forth) enjoy, according to the editors of the study, higher per capita incomes, and higher overall well-being. When the Index was first published in 1995, the United States ranked fifth in the world, but it fell to tenth in the 2013 study. Hong Kong ranked first in 2013, with Canada sixth and the United Kingdom fourteenth.
a. What is economic freedom?
b. The Heritage Foundation lists 10 factors including, for example, business freedom, in its list of ingredients in measuring economic freedom. In addition to business freedom, what other factors would you include in a list designed to measure a nation’s level of overall economic freedom?
c. How does economic freedom help an economy grow?