Economic Freedom

Jordan is the most economically-free nation in the Arab world, followed by Bahrain and the U.A.E., according to the Economic Freedom of the Arab World: 2019 Annual Report, co-published by the Fraser Institute, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty and the International Research Foundation. This report compares and ranks 22 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.

Economic Freedom of the World: 2019 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 162 countries and territories. In this year’s ranking—Hong Kong is again number one and Canada (8th) trails the United States (5th).

The Human Freedom Index, 2018 finds that New Zealand is the freest country in the world, followed by Switzerland and Hong Kong. Canada ranks 5th globally, and the United States ranks 17th in this year’s report. The index ranks 162 countries and jurisdictions based on 79 indicators of personal, civil and economic freedoms and is a joint project with the Cato Institute in the U.S. and Germany’s Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.