On the relationship between economic freedom and economic growth by Jakob de Haan and Jan-Egbert Sturm Anna Bonarska Elizabeth Rivard
Individuals have economic freedom when: Property protection No arrangements that restrain the realization of gains from economic activities
Comparison of two EFI Heritage Foundation/Wall street Journal (Holmes et al., 1998) 10 elements Fraser Institute (Gwartney et al., 1996) 17 elements Aspects: 1. International trade 2. International capital flows 3. Black market 4. Taxes 5. Government intervension 6. Monetary policy and inflation 7. Banking 8. Price controls and regulation and Market entry 9. Property rights
Criticism of Fraser Institute and Heritage Foundation EFI’s Taxes Government spending and consumption Inflation
Review of previous empirical studies Lack of sensitivity analysis Link between economic freedom and economic growth depends on the measure used No studies found that economic freedom does not influence growth
New evidence The growth equation included the following: M: a vector of standard economic explanatory variables F: indicator of economic freedom Z: a vector of up to three possible additional economic explanatory variables
Critique of the model Population growth Average export and import ratio to GDP
New methodology of Heritage Foundation EFI
Conclusion More economic freedom will bring countries more quickly to their steady state level of economic growth, but that level of syteady state growth is not affected by the level of economic freedom.
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