Be sure to listen to our Heritage Libertad Radio Show. Click here to listen in Spanish. Click here to listen in English. The Spanish segment kicks off with a discussion of Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s recent trip to South America. We continue with an interview with Heritage expert Jim Roberts, to discuss the recent release of the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom. The segment ends with a look at what Libertad fans have to say about policy, politics, and pop-culture. The English segment begins with a discussion with Congressman Frank Wolf …
The 2012 Index of Economic Freedom was released last week by The Heritage Foundation in partnership with the Wall Street Journal. This year’s Index highlighted some worrisome trends as economic freedom declined worldwide and the United States dropped to #10 in the rankings. Reason.tv sat down with Heritage’s James Roberts to talk about this year’s Index and the importance of the free market around the world.
If the 2012 edition of Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom has bad news for the United States, the news for Europe is not much better. The 43 nations of the European region did manage to lose less economic freedom than did the United States, but a decline is still a decline. And the European decline was broad-based: Only nine countries made gains, and every one of the top 10 declined—in some cases, dramatically. The underlying driver of the declines in many cases will come as no surprise: higher levels of …
Heritage and the Wall Street Journal released the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom on Thursday, ranking 179 countries on 10 benchmarks that gauge their economic success. This year Heritage introduced a new interactive feature that gives you the opportunity to create a comparative graph. This week’s chart shows how the United States stacks up against Canada and the United Kingdom. As recently as 2009, the United States led both countries in economic freedom. But after four years of decline, the United States is heading in the wrong direction. This year …
So you think you’re free? Thanks to big government spending and exploding debt, the United States — and indeed the world — is less economically free today than it was a year ago, according to the 18th annual Index of Economic Freedom, released yesterday by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. Economic freedom — the ability of individuals to control the fruits of their labor and pursue their dreams — is central to prosperity around the world. Heritage and The Wall Street Journal measure economic freedom by studying its pillars: the …
In this week’s Heritage in Focus, Heritage’s Kim Holmes, co-author of the annual Index of Economic Freedom, discusses this year’s index. Click here to listen. How does the U.S. rank in economic freedom this year? How does economic freedom fare worldwide? Is there any big surprise in this year’s index? Be sure to listen to Dr. Holmes discuss answers to those questions and more! To get regular updates on Heritage in Focus podcasts, visit our RSS feed or subscribe on iTunes.
Real life can never give social scientists the kind of laboratory-quality tests that natural scientists can create, but sometimes it comes close. Since the two Koreas–North and South–are virtually identical culturally, it would appear that the different political systems explain the outcome illustrated by the figure below, which comes from last Monday’s Washington Post: Since the Korean War divided the country, South Korea’s citizens have enjoyed greater freedoms than their northern cousins, and that includes economic freedom. The Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom measures economic freedom over the recent …
Four of the world’s five most charitable nations also rank among the ten most economically free, a comparison of a pair of studies finds. The Charities Aid Foundation released its annual World Giving Index on Wednesday. The survey ranks the nations of the world according to a definition of charity that includes direct donations to charitable organizations, volunteer work, and the helping of strangers in need. The world’s five most charitable nations, according to the report, are, in order: the United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. …
President Obama recently lectured Americans on economics during a campaign stop in Osawatomie, Kansas. The New York Times congratulated President Obama’s speech as a potent blow against market economics. Cal-Berkeley professor Robert Reich called it the most important speech of his presidency. The Kansas City Star gushed over his good policy and good politics. In reality, President Obama disastrously misdiagnosed the source of U.S. economic problems: Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and it’s made it easier for them …
The Legatum Institute has just released its 2011 Prosperity Index. The index has a number of strengths, topped by the versatility of its supporting Web site. But Legatum has trumpeted an inaccurate finding that China has eclipsed the U.S. on the narrow economic dimension of its measure of prosperity. This finding demonstrates the problems with comparing China to other countries, as so much Chinese data are unusable. Some of Legatum’s numbers are clearly wrong; others are probably wrong. The Legatum economic sub-index uses data from other sources on 15 economic …
