Index Economic Freedom

The Index of Economic Freedom will enable readers to track more than 20 years of progress in economic freedom, prosperity, and opportunity and to spread these concepts in their homes, schools, and communities. The Index of Economic Freedom is a useful resource for a wide range of users, including scholars, decision-makers in government, journalists, students, teachers, and people working in business and finance. The Index is a great, objective resource for studying 184 economies around the world, and each country page offers in-depth analysis of a nation's political and economic trends.

We use 12 quantitative and qualitative parameters to quantify economic freedom, which are divided into four major categories or "pillars" of economic freedom:
1. Rule of law (rights to property, honest government, and efficient courts)
2. Government size (budgetary health, tax burden, and spending)
3. Regulation Efficiency (Freedom of Business, Freedom of Labor, and Freedom of Money)
4. Open markets (trade, financial, and investment freedom)
On a scale of 0 to 100, each of the twelve economic liberties included in these categories is rated. The average of these twelve economic liberties, with equal weight given to each, yields a country's overall score.