It has been suggested that Index of Economic Freedom 2003–2006 be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since July 2009.

The Index of Economic Freedom is a series of 10 economic measurements created by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. Its stated objective is to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations.

The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal created the Index of Economic Freedom in 1995. According to Heritage, the creators of the Index took an approach similar to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations that "basic institutions that protect the liberty of individuals to pursue their own economic interests result in greater prosperity for the larger society."^[1][2] The authors of the 2009 Index of Economic Freedom are Kim Holmes and Ambassador Terry Miller.

2012 rankings (First 30)[link]

To view the full list and the description of each country's economy, go to http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking.

Rank	Country / Region	Score
1	Hong Kong (China)	89.9
2	Singapore	87.5
3	Australia	83.1
4	New Zealand	82.1
5	Switzerland	81.1
6	Canada	79.9
7	Chile	78.3
8	Mauritius	77.0
9	Ireland	76.9
10	United States	76.3
11	Denmark	76.2
12	Bahrain	75.2
13	Luxembourg	74.5
14	United Kingdom	74.1
15	Netherlands	73.3
16	Estonia	73.2
17	Finland	72.3
18	Taiwan (China)	71.9
19	Macao	71.8
20	Cyprus	71.8
21	Sweden	71.7
22	Japan	71.6
23	Lithuania	71.5
24	Saint Lucia	71.3
25	Qatar	71.3
26	Germany	71.0
27	Iceland	70.9
28	Austria	70.3
29	Uruguay	69.9
30	Czech Republic	69.9

Historical rankings[link]

Country	Rank
	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997	1996	1995
Hong Kong	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
British Hong Kong												1	1	1
Singapore	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Ireland	3	3	3	4	4	4	4	3	10	11	11	13	27	20
Australia	4	4	7	9	8	10	11	8	5	5	7	9	10	8
United States	5	6	5	5	7	7	8	6	8	7	8	8	5	4
New Zealand	6	5	4	3	3	3	3	4	3	3	3	3	3
Canada	7	10	10	12	12	13	14	21	20	25	27	26	20	18
Chile	8	8	8	8	11	12	9	12	12	12	9	7	13	14
Switzerland	9	9	9	6	5	6	6	10	6	4	4	4	4
United Kingdom	10	7	6	7	9	9	7	7	4	6	5	5	7	3
Denmark	11	12	13	13	17	20	23	33	33	32	34	30	31
Estonia	12	11	15	14	10	8	10	9	24	13	15	24	38	26
Netherlands	13	15	16	18	14	14	14	16	21	57	24	20	23
Iceland	14	13	11	10	19	16	19	15	15	19	18	19
Luxembourg	15	14	12	11	6	5	5	5	7	15	13	12	15
Finland	16	16	17	21	16	15	16	27	50	54	55	39	47
Japan	17	18	18	36	50	34	39	23	19	27	21	21	14	6
Mauritius	18	32	35	35	51	52	33	45	36	20
Bahrain	19	24	23	22	13	11	12	11	11	8	6	6	6	5
Belgium	20	17	24	30	30	33	34	57	55	60	48	44	36
Barbados	21	27	20	24	28	23	17	20	27	37	33	46	53
Cyprus	22	20	21	20	15	19	20	22	35	33	29	27	30
Germany	23	22	25	28	27	26	25	29	43	40	52	29	25	17
The Bahamas	24	19	19	15	20	17	15	14	16	10	10	10	11	11
Republic of China (Taiwan)	25	25	29	19	26	21	22	18	17	18	20	22	9	7
Lithuania	26	21	22	23	18	27	43	53	67	67	74	78	104
Sweden	27	33	27	27	24	24	24	43	47	51	53	53	55	41
Armenia	28	30	14	25	23	37	32	46	62	96	117	123	125
Trinidad and Tobago	29	23	26	17	21	29	26	19	13	16	17	16	24
Austria	30	26	30	34	32	35	36	37	31	53	43	40	26	16
Spain	31	28	32	31	29	28	29	36	41	45	62	68	65	34
Georgia	32	31	54	93	78	84	104	87	107	114	122	125	123
El Salvador	33	29	28	16	22	22	21	17	9	9	22	18	21	19
Norway	34	37	34	45	42	39	37	41	22	29	31	41	39
Slovakia	35	36	33	42	48	77	76	85	108	105	85	85	75	46
Botswana	36	35	31	26	25	30	42	42	42	59	60	72	56	57
Czech Republic	37	39	40	47	35	36	40	26	30	23	28	54	29	23
Latvia	38	38	37	39	33	44	52	44	57	50	56	57	86
Kuwait	39	41	41	48	55	43	46	35	25	24	38	42	35
Uruguay	40	34	43	33	37	25	30	24	28	30	26	31	46	37

Method[link]

The Index's 2008 definition of economic freedom is "The highest form of economic freedom provides an absolute right of property ownership, fully realized freedoms of movement for labor, capital, and goods, and an absolute absence of coercion or constraint of economic liberty beyond the extent necessary for citizens to protect and maintain liberty itself."^[3]

The index scores nations on 10 broad factors of economic freedom using statistics from organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Economist Intelligence Unit:

• Business Freedom: Business freedom is a quantitative measure of the ability to start, operate, and close a business that represents the overall burden of regulation as well as the efficiency of government in the regulatory process.
• Trade Freedom: Trade freedom is a composite measure of the absence of tariff and non-tariff barriers that affect imports and exports of goods and services. Different imports entering a country can, and often do, face different tariffs.
• Monetary Freedom: Monetary freedom combines a measure of price stability with an assessment of price controls. Both inflation and price controls distort market activity. Price stability without microeconomic intervention is the ideal state for the free market.
• Government Size/Spending: This component considers the level of government expenditures as a percentage of GDP. Government expenditures, including consumption and transfers, account for the entire score.
• Fiscal Freedom: Fiscal freedom is a measure of the tax burden imposed by government.
• Property Rights: The property rights component is an assessment of the ability of individuals to accumulate private property, secured by clear laws that are fully enforced by the state.
• Investment Freedom: In an economically free country, there would be no constraints on the flow of investment capital. Individuals and firms would be allowed to move their resources into and out of specific activities internally and across the country’s borders without restriction.
• Financial Freedom: Financial freedom is a measure of banking efficiency as well as a measure of independence from government control and interference in the financial sector.
• Freedom from Corruption: Corruption erodes economic freedom by introducing insecurity and uncertainty into economic relationships. The higher the level of corruption, the lower the level of overall economic freedom and the lower a country’s score.
• Labor Freedom: The labor freedom component is a quantitative measure that looks into aspects of the legal and regulatory framework of a country’s labor market.

The 10 factors are averaged equally into a total score. Each one of the 10 freedoms is graded using a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the maximum freedom. A score of 100 signifies an economic environment or set of policies that is most conducive to economic freedom.^[3] The methodology has shifted and changed as new data and measurements have become available, especially in the area of Labor freedom, which was given its own indicator spot in 2007.^[2]

Meaning[link]

The Heritage Foundation reports that the top 20% on the index have twice the per capita income of those in the second quintile, and five times that of the bottom 20%.^[4] Carl Schramm, who wrote the first chapter of the 2008 Index, states that cities of Medieval Italy and mid-19th century Midwestern American cities all flourished to the degree they possessed economic fluidity and institutional adaptiveness created by economic freedom.^[5]

According to Will Wilkinson of the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, studies show that higher economic freedom correlates strongly with higher self-reported happiness.^[6] According to Tomi Ovaska and Ryo Takashima,^{[citation needed]} economic freedom research suggests "that people unmistakably care about the degree to which the society where they live provides them opportunities and the freedom to undertake new projects, strongly with and make choices based on one's personal preferences."

According to the Cato Institute, higher economic freedom promotes participation and collaboration.^[7] Also claimed is that higher economic freedom is extremely significant in preventing wars; according to their calculations, freedom is around 54 times more effective than democracy (as measured by Democracy Score) in diminishing violent conflict.^[8]

Ratings[link]

Since the index was created in 1995, the score for world economic freedom has increased, rising 2.6 points up to 2008.^[9] In 2011 the score had decreased from the 2008 score of 60.2 to 59.7, which represents an increase of 2.2 points since 1995. The Economic Freedom score improved for 117 countries, the majority of countries included in the index, which were mainly developing and emerging market economies. With the exception of Europe and North America, there were increased levels of freedom recorded in all regions, with the greatest improvement shown in Sub-Saharan Africa. The top five "free" economies identified by the 2011 index were Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland, each scoring over 80 on the economic freedom grading scale.^[10] Since the Index was created in 1995, Hong Kong has been the top performing economy.^[10][11]

The United States dropped to 9th place behind such countries as Denmark, Canada, and first-place Hong Kong.^[10] The Heritage Foundation has pointed to increases in government spending as the reason for the United States' decline, and according to data from the 2011 index, the growth rates of countries with the highest levels of government spending were 4.5 points lower, on average, than countries where government spending was under control.^[12] In their "Executive Highlights" of index results, the Heritage Foundation stated that "high levels of government spending in response to the global economic turmoil have not resulted in higher economic growth."^[10]

The results from the 2012 index showed an overall decline in global economic freedom; according to The Heritage Foundation, the average score in its ranking was the second lowest of the last ten years.^[13] In particular, the U.S. dropped to 10th place in the ranking, and has now fallen three places since 2008, when it was 7th.^[14] A report issued by the Foundation stated that government spending was the cause of the decline, and had "not only failed to arrest the economic crisis, but also—in many countries—seems to be prolonging it."^[15] According to the report, activity in the private sector is threatened by the greater government spending, which has increased public debt and led to more bureaucracy.^[13]

Reception[link]

According to the Freedom House, "there is a high and statistically significant correlation between the level of political freedom as measured by Freedom House and economic freedom as measured by the Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation survey."^[16]

The Millennium Challenge Account, a U.S. government foreign aid program, has used the Trade freedom indicator in determining which countries will receive their performance-based compacts.^[17]

Critics such as Jeffrey Sachs have contested the Index's assumption that economic openness necessarily leads to better growth. In his book The End of Poverty, Sachs graphed countries' ratings on the index against GDP per capita growth between 1995 and 2003, claiming to demonstrate no correlation between a country's rating and its rate of economic growth. Sachs pointed out, as examples, that countries with good ratings such as Switzerland and Uruguay had sluggish economic performances, others, like China, with poorer rating had very strong economic growth.^[18]

The UAE questioned the rating of their country's economic freedom in 2008, comparing its middling rating with the high rating they had received from other indicators such as Transparency International and Moody's. They also argued that the report is "unreliable", because its methodology had changed twice in the last two years.^[19]

Stefan Karlsson of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, challenged the usefulness of the index due to the fuzziness of many of the categories used to determine freedom.^[20] John Miller roundly criticizes the "Index", writing in Dollars & Sense, "In the hands of the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, Washington's foremost right-wing think tank, however, an economic freedom index merely measures corporate and entrepreneurial freedom from accountability. Upon examination, the index turns out to be a poor barometer of either freedom more broadly construed or of prosperity."^[21] According to Left Business Observer, the Index has only a 33% statistical correlation with a standard measure of economic growth, GDP per capita.^[22]

See also[link]

• List of indices of freedom
• Mary O'Grady
• List of countries by economic freedom

References[link]

External links[link]

• Index of Economic Freedom from the Heritage Foundation
• The Failings of the Economic Freedom Index by Stefan Karlsson from the Ludwig von Mises Institute
• Free Free At Last by John Miller in Dollars & Sense

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v t e

Economic freedom is a term used in economic and policy debates. As with freedom generally, there are various definitions, but no universally accepted concept of economic freedom.^[1][2] One major approach to economic freedom comes from classical liberal and libertarian traditions emphasizing free markets and private property, while another extends the welfare economics study of individual choice, with greater economic freedom coming from a "larger" (in some technical sense) set of possible choices.^[3] Another more philosophical perspective emphasizes its context in distributive justice and basic freedoms of all individuals.^[4] Other conceptions of economic freedom include freedom from want^[1][5] and the freedom to engage in collective bargaining.^[6]

The free market viewpoint understands economic liberty as the freedom to produce, trade and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force, fraud or theft. This is embodied in the rule of law, property rights and freedom of contract, and characterized by external and internal openness of the markets, the protection of property rights and freedom of economic initiative.^[3][7][8] There are several indices of economic freedom that attempt to measure free market economic freedom. Empirical studies based on these rankings have found higher living standards, economic growth, income equality, less corruption and less political violence to be correlated with free markets.^{[9][10][11][12][13]}

Free market viewpoint[link]

Magna Carta marks one of the earliest attempts to limit a sovereign's authority and it is seen as a symbol of the rule of law.^[14]

Institutions of economic freedom[link]

Rule of law[link]

Free market advocates argue that the principle of the rule of law both requires, and is required for economic freedom. Friedrich Hayek argued that the certainty of law contributed to the prosperity of the West more than any other single factor. Other important principles of the rule of law are the generality and equality of the law, which require that all legal rules apply equally to everybody. These principles can be seen as safeguards against severe restrictions on liberty, because they require that all laws equally apply to those with political and coercive power as well as those who are governed. Principles of the generality and equality of the law exclude special privileges and arbitrary application of law, that is laws favoring one group at the expense of other citizens.^[15] According to Friedrich Hayek, equality before the law is incompatible with any activity of the government aiming to achieve the material equality of different people. He asserts that a state's attempt to place people in the same (or similar) material position leads to an unequal treatment of individuals and to a compulsory redistribution of income.^[16] Both of those actions are contributing to a decline in economic freedom.

Private property rights[link]

In the 1960s Alan Greenspan argued that economic freedom requires the gold standard for protection of savings from confiscation through inflation.^[17]

According to the free market view, a secure system of private property rights is an essential part of economic freedom. Such systems include two main rights: the right to control and benefit from property and the right to transfer property by voluntary means. These rights offer people the possibility of autonomy and self-determination according to their personal values and goals.^[18] Economist Milton Friedman sees property rights as "the most basic of human rights and an essential foundation for other human rights."^[19] With property rights protected, people are free to choose the use of their property, earn on it, and transfer it to anyone else, as long as they do it on a voluntary basis and do not resort to force, fraud or theft. In such conditions most people can achieve much greater personal freedom and development than under a regime of government coercion. A secure system of property rights also reduces uncertainty and encourages investments, creating favorable conditions for an economy to be successful.^[20] Empirical evidence suggests that countries with strong property rights systems have economic growth rates almost twice as high as those of countries with weak property rights systems, and that a market system with significant private property rights is an essential condition for democracy.^[21] According to Hernando de Soto, much of the poverty in the Third World countries is caused by the lack of Western systems of laws and well-defined and universally recognized property rights. De Soto argues that because of the legal barriers poor people in those countries can not utilize their assets to produce more wealth.^[22]

Pierre Proudhon, a socialist and anarchist thinker, argued that property is both theft and freedom.^[23] Many leftists dispute that private property means "economic freedom" and believe in a system where people can lay claim to things based on personal use.^[24]

Freedom of contract[link]

Freedom of contract is the right to choose one's contracting parties and to trade with them on any terms and conditions one sees fit. Contracts permit individuals to create their own enforceable legal rules, adapted to their unique situations.^[25] Parties decide whether contracts are profitable or fair, but once a contract is made they are obliged to fulfill its terms, even if they are going to sustain losses by doing so. Through making binding promises people are free to pursue their own interests. The main economic function of contracts is to provide transferability of property rights. Transferability largely depends on the enforceability of contracts, which is enabled by the judicial system. In Western societies the state does not enforce all types of contracts, and in some cases it intervenes by prohibiting certain arrangements, even if they are made between willing parties. However, not all contracts need to be enforced by the state. For example, in the United States there is a large number of third-party arbitration tribunals which resolve disputes under private commercial law.^[26] Negatively understood, freedom of contract is freedom from government interference and from imposed value judgments of fairness. The notion of "freedom of contract" was given one of its most famous legal expressions in 1875 by Sir George Jessel MR:^[27]

The doctrine of freedom of contract received one of its strongest expressions in the US Supreme Court case of Lochner v New York which struck down legal restrictions on the working hours of bakers. [3]

Critics of the classical view of freedom of contract argue that this freedom is illusory when the bargaining power of the parties is highly unequal, most notably in the case of contracts between employers and workers. As in the case of restrictions on working hours, workers as a group may benefit from legal protections that prevent individuals agreeing to contracts that require long working hours. In its West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish decision in 1937, overturning Lochner, the Supreme Court cited an earlier decisions

From this point on, the Lochner view of freedom of contract has been rejected by US courts.^[29]

Economic and political freedom[link]

Some free market advocates argue that political and civil liberties have simultaneously expanded with market-based economies, and present empirical evidence to support the claim that economic and political freedoms are linked.^[30][31]

In Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Friedman developed the argument that economic freedom, while itself an extremely important component of total freedom, is also a necessary condition for political freedom. He commented that centralized control of economic activities was always accompanied with political repression. In his view, voluntary character of all transactions in a free market economy and wide diversity that it permits are fundamental threats to repressive political leaders and greatly diminish power to coerce. Through elimination of centralized control of economic activities, economic power is separated from political power, and the one can serve as counterbalance to the other. Friedman feels that competitive capitalism is especially important to minority groups, since impersonal market forces protect people from discrimination in their economic activities for reasons unrelated to their productivity.^[32]

Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises argued that economic and political freedom were mutually dependent: "The idea that political freedom can be preserved in the absence of economic freedom, and vice versa, is an illusion. Political freedom is the corollary of economic freedom. It is no accident that the age of capitalism became also the age of government by the people."^[33]

In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek argued that "Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends."^[34] Hayek criticized socialist policies as the slippery slope that can lead to totalitarianism.^[35]

Gordon Tullock has argued that "the Hayek-Friedman argument" predicted totalitarian governments in much of Western Europe in the late 20th century - which did not occur. He uses the example of Sweden, in which the government at that time controlled 63 percent of GNP, as an example to support his argument that the basic problem with The Road to Serfdom is "that it offered predictions which turned out to be false. The steady advance of government in places such as Sweden has not led to any loss of non-economic freedoms." While criticizing Hayek, Tullock still praises the classical liberal notion of economic freedom, saying, "Arguments for political freedom are strong, as are the arguments for economic freedom. We needn’t make one set of arguments depend on the other."^[36]

Indices of economic freedom[link]

The annual surveys Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) and Index of Economic Freedom (IEF) are two indices which attempt to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations. The EFW index, originally developed by Gwartney, Lawson and Block at the Fraser Institute^[37] was likely the most used in empirical studies as of 2000.^[38] The other major index, which was developed by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal appears superior for data work, although as it only goes back to 1995, it is less useful for historical comparisons.^[38]

According to the creators of the indices, these rankings correlate strongly with higher average income per person, higher income of the poorest 10%, higher life expectancy, higher literacy, lower infant mortality, higher access to water sources and less corruption.^[39][40] The people living in the top one-fifth of countries enjoy an average income of $23,450 and a growth rate in the 1990s of 2.56 percent per year; in contrast, the bottom one-fifth in the rankings had an average income of just $2,556 and a -0.85 percent growth rate in the 1990s. The poorest 10 percent of the population have an average income of just $728 in the lowest ranked countries compared with over $7,000 in the highest ranked countries. The life expectancy of people living in the highest ranked nations is 20 years longer than for people in the lowest ranked countries.^[41]

Higher economic freedom, as measured by both the Heritage and the Fraser indices, correlates strongly with higher self-reported happiness.^[42]

Erik Gartzke of the Fraser Institute estimates that countries with a high EFW are significantly less likely to be involved in wars, while his measure of democracy had little or no impact.^[43]

The Economic Freedom of the World score for the entire world has grown considerably in recent decades. The average score has increased from 5.17 in 1985 to 6.4 in 2005. Of the nations in 1985, 95 nations increased their score, seven saw a decline, and six were unchanged.^[44] Using the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom methodology world economic freedom has increased 2.6 points since 1995.^[45]

Members of the World Bank Group also use Index of Economic Freedom as the indicator of investment climate, because it covers more aspects relevant to the private sector in wide number of countries.^[46]

The nature of economic freedom is often in dispute. Robert Lawson, the co-author of EFW, even acknowledges the potential shortcomings of freedom indices: "The purpose of the EFW index is to measure, no doubt imprecisely, the degree of economic freedom that exists."^[47] He likens the recent attempts of economists to measure economic freedom to the initial attempts of economists to measure GDP: "They [macroeconomists] were scientists who sat down to design, as best they could with the tools at hand, a measure of the current economic activity of the nation. Economic activity exists and their job was to measure it. Likewise economic freedom exists. It is a thing. We can define and measure it." Thus, it follows that some economists, socialists and anarchists contend that the existing indicators of economic freedom are too narrowly defined and should take into account a broader conception of economic freedoms.

Critics of the indices (e.g. Thom Hartmann) also oppose the inclusion of business-related measures like corporate charters and intellectual property protection.^[48] John Miller in Dollars & Sense has stated that the indices are "a poor barometer of either freedom more broadly construed or of prosperity." He argues that the high correlation between living standards and economic freedom as measured by IEF is the result of choices made in the construction of the index that guarantee this result. For example, the treatment of a large informal sector (common in poor countries) as an indicator of restrictive government policy, and the use of the change in the ratio of government spending to national income, rather than the level of this ratio. Hartmann argues that these choices cause the social democratic European countries to rank higher than countries where the government share of the economy is small but growing.^[49]

Economists Dani Rodrik and Jeffrey Sachs have separately noted that there appears to be little correlation between measured economic freedom and economic growth when the least free countries are disregarded, as indicated by the strong growth of the Chinese economy in recent years.^[50][51] Morris Altman found that there is a relatively large correlation between economic freedom and both per capita income and per capita growth. He argues that this is especially true when it comes to sub-indices relating to property rights and sound money, while he calls into question the importance of sub-indices relating to labor regulation and government size once certain threshold values are passed.^[52] John Miller further observes that Hong Kong and Singapore, both only "partially free" according to Freedom House, are leading countries on both economic freedom indices and casts doubt on the claim that measured economic freedom is associated with political freedom.^[49] However, according to the Freedom House, "there is a high and statistically significant correlation between the level of political freedom as measured by Freedom House and economic freedom as measured by the Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation survey."^[53]

Choice sets and economic freedom[link]

Amartya Sen and other economists have considered economic freedom in terms of the set of economic choices available to individuals.

This section requires expansion.

Positive and negative freedom[link]

The differences between alternative views of economic freedom have been expressed in terms of Isaiah Berlin's distinction between positive freedom and negative freedom. Classical liberals favour a focus on negative freedom as did Berlin himself. By contrast Amartya Sen argues for an understanding of freedom in terms of capabilities to pursue a range of goals.^[54] One measure which attempts to assess freedom in the positive sense is Goodin, Rice, Parpo, and Eriksson's measure of discretionary time, which is an estimate of how much time people have at their disposal during which they are free to choose the activities in which they participate, after taking into account the time they need to spend acquiring the necessities of life.^[55]

Freedom from want[link]

Franklin D. Roosevelt included freedom from want in his Four freedoms speech. Roosevelt stated that freedom from want "translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world". In terms of US policy, Roosevelt's New Deal included economic freedoms such as freedom of trade union organisation, as well as a wide range of policies of government intervention and redistributive taxation aimed at promoting freedom from want. Internationally, Roosevelt favored the policies associated with the Bretton Woods Agreement which fixed exchange rates and established international economic institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Herbert Hoover saw economic freedom as a fifth freedom, which secures survival of Roosevelt's Four freedoms. He described economic freedom as freedom "for men to choose their own calling, to accumulate property in protection of their children and old age, [and] freedom of enterprise that does not injure others."^[56]

Freedom of association and unions[link]

The Philadelphia Declaration (enshrined in the constitution of the International Labour Organization^[57]) states that "all human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic security and equal opportunity". The ILO further states that "The right of workers and employers to form and join organizations of their own choosing is an integral part of a free and open society."^[58]

See also[link]

• Economic liberalism
• Economic Freedom of the World
• Index of Economic Freedom 2003-2006
• Index of Economic Freedom historical rankings
• List of indices of freedom
• Laissez-faire
• List of countries by economic freedom‎
• Four Freedoms (European Union)
• Capitalism and Freedom
• Free to Choose

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
• Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
• Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
• Ludwig von Mises, Economic Freedom and Interventionism
• Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom

External links[link]

• Economic Freedom by Robert A. Lawson of the Fraser Institute at the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
• John Miller, "Free, Free at Last" in Dollars & Sense magazine
• The Protection Of Economic Rights & Freedoms

Kim Holmes

Kim R. Holmes, Ph.D., is a foreign and defense policy experts in the United States. A former assistant secretary of state, he currently serves as the Vice President of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation and as director of its Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies.^[1] His published works include Liberty's Best Hope: American Leadership in the 21st Century (2008) and the annual Heritage/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom.

Education[link]

Holmes holds a Masters degree and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University and has a bachelors degree from the University of Central Florida.

Career[link]

Kim Holmes returned to the Heritage Foundation as Vice President in 2005 to lead its team of over 40 experts in a broad portfolio covering international affairs and national security. Holmes had first joined Heritage in 1985 as a defense policy analyst focusing on strategic defenses, the U.S. defense budget, military reform and weapons systems. He served as Senior Policy Analyst for National Security Affairs specializing in arms control, NATO, and East-West strategic relations, and then as Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies before being named Vice President for the first time in 1992.

In 2001, Holmes accepted a presidential nomination to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs under Secretary of State Colin Powell, a position he held until mid-2005.^[2] He was responsible for U.S. engagement at the United Nations and 46 other international organizations, directing over 400 U.S. diplomats and civil servants at the State Department headquarters in Washington and at U.S. missions in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Paris, Rome, Montreal and Nairobi. Key U.S. multilateral efforts included developing stronger mechanisms for countering terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; stopping human rights abuses such as genocide in Sudan; standing up and supporting peacekeeping missions, including Iraq and Afghanistan; promoting economic development; averting pandemics; improving aviation and maritime security; reforming the U.N. system; reentering UNESCO and other technical, economic and political concerns. Major U.N. Security Council resolutions securing during his tenure dealt with the U.N.'s involvement in Iraq and Sudan, and the adoption of the first-ever resolution (1540) on nonproliferation, which recognized the importance of global partnerships such as the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative. Holmes also helped to forge the first democracy caucus at the U.N. and to establish the U.N. Democracy Fund.

Since returning to Heritage in 2005, Holmes has expanded its engagement in international affairs. He was instrumental in establishing The Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom - the only such center in the world carrying Lady Thatcher's name. He is a popular presenter at national and international conferences on global affairs, defense security, international law, and economic and political freedom. He is interviewed frequently by domestic and foreign media, and has appeared on major current affairs programs on CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Al-Jazeera, Kyodo News and others.

Holmes is founding editor of the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal's Index of Economic Freedom. Its trade policy scores are used by the U.S. government to determine country eligibility for Millennium Challenge Account funds. Business and risk management firms also use the Index to assess foreign investment climates.

Holmes has published a number of articles and books, and currently publishes a regular biweekly column in the Washington Times. Shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he spearheaded a task force that produced a groundbreaking homeland security study entitled, "Defending the American Homeland." Many of the recommendations in that report have been adopted by the U.S. government. In 1995, he helped to lay the intellectual groundwork for renewing the U.S. commitment to missile defense and ending self-imposed restrictions under the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the now-defunct Soviet Union. He has edited a number of foreign policy books, including: Restoring American Leadership: A U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy Blueprint; Mandate for Leadership, a quadrennial guide for Washington policymakers; Between Diplomacy and Deterrence: Strategies for U.S. Relations with China; Reshaping Europe: Strategies for Post-Cold War Europe; and Strategic Defenses for the 1990s and Beyond. Holmes has published scholarly articles in such journals as National Interest, Journal Aspenia (Italy), the African Executive, Harvard University's International Security and Columbia University's Journal of International Affairs.

Just prior to joining Heritage in 1985, Holmes was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, a research institute associated with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He also was a research fellow at the Institute for European History in Mainz, Germany while completing his 1982 dissertation on the history of National Socialism in Bavaria between World War I and World War II. He taught European security and history as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University.

Holmes is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of its Washington Advisory Committee. He has served on the Defense Policy Board of experts who advise the Secretary of Defense, on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the Center for International Private Enterprise, and as a public member of the U.S. delegation to the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is also a member of the Institute for International Strategic Studies and the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C.

On October 6, 2011, Mitt Romney announced that Holmes would be a member of his Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team. This group draws on a wide array of experience to advise Governor Romney on foreign policy strategy, defense issues, intelligence matters, counterterrorism, and regional policy.

Holmes is married with two grown children and plays lead guitar in a DC-area band known as Satellite Papa.

Works[link]

Studies and papers

• Twelve Principles to Guide U.S. Energy Policy
• The U.S. and India: Partnership for the 21st Century (Lecture)
• Spreading Freedom Around the World
• North Korea Nuclear and Missile Issues: What's the Solution?
• The Heritage Foundation

Books

• The Index of Economic Freedom
• The NSDAP and the Crisis of Agrarian Conservatism in Lower Bavaria (1982, Garland Pub.)
• Reshaping Europe: Strategies for a Post-Cold War Europe (1990)
• SDI at the Turning Point: Readying Strategic Defenses for the 1990s and Beyond (1990)
• A Safe and Prosperous America: A U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy Blueprint (1994)
• The New Member’s Guide to the Issues
• Defending America: A Near- and Long-Term Plan to Deploy Missile Defenses
• Restoring American Leadership: A U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy Blueprint (1996) ISBN 978-0-89195-239-8
• Between Diplomacy and Deterrence: Strategies for U.S. Relations with China (1997)
• Mandate for Leadership IV: Turning Ideas into Actions (1997)
• Issues: The Candidate’s Briefing Book,(1998,2000)
• Priorities for the President (2001)
• Reclaiming the Language of Freedom at the United Nations: A Guide for U.S. Policymakers (2005)
• Liberty’s Best Hope: American Leadership in the 21st Century (2008)
• ConUNdrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives (2009)

Editorial

• "On the road to re-Carterizing America", The Washington Times, June 9, 2010

Notes[link]

1. ^ http://www.heritage.org/About/Staff/H/Kim-Holmes
2. ^ http://www.33-minutes.com/33-minutes/experts.htm

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External links[link]

• Satellite Papa MySpace Page
• Author's blog