Economic Freedom of the World: 1975-1995

The central elements of economic freedom are personal choice, protection of private property, and freedom of exchange. The goal of this study is to construct an index that is (a) a good indicator of economic freedom across countries and (b) based on objective components that can be updated regularly and used to track future changes in economic freedom. An index containing 17 components was designed to provide an empirical measure for economic freedom. The components were grouped into four major areas: I. Money and Inflation, II. Government Operations and Regulations, III. Takings and Discriminatory Taxation, and IV. Restrictions on International Exchange.