Economic Freedom

United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain are, once again, the top three most economically-free nations in the Arab world, according to Economic Freedom of the Arab World: 2016 Annual Report, co-published by the Fraser Institute, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty and the International Research Foundation. This report compares and ranks 21 Arab nations in five areas of economic freedom: size of government, including expenditures, taxes and enterprises; commercial and economic law and security of property rights; access to sound money; freedom to trade internationally; and regulation of credit, labour and business.

The Economic Freedom of the World: 2016 Annual Report is the world’s premier measurement of economic freedom, ranking countries based on five areas: size of government, legal structure and security of property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation of credit, labour and business. This year’s report compares 159 countries and territories. In this year’s ranking, which is based on 2014 data, Hong Kong is again number one, Canada is tied for fifth, and the United States ranked 16^th for the second year in a row.

The Economic Freedom of North America 2015 report uses data from 2013 (the most recent year available) to rank jurisdictions based on their levels of economic freedom (measured in size of government, taxation, regulation, rule of law, etc.). It spotlights the 50 U.S. states, 32 Mexican states and 10 Canadian provinces.