Economic Freedom Really Works.

Economic freedom helps produce faster economic growth, higher living standards, and more happiness, a wide-ranging literature review maintains. "In the academic world, there's a growing consensus that increased economic freedom correlates with positive outcomes for people in countries around the world," says Robert A. Lawson, professor of economics at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, and author of Economic Freedom in the Literature--What Is It Good (Bad) For?

A Fraser Institute review examined 721 empirical papers (published between 1996-2022) using the Economic Freedom of the World index, which measures economic freedom--the ability of individuals to make their own economic decisions--by analyzing the policies and institutions of jurisdictions and assessing indicators such as regulation, size of government, property rights, government spending, and taxation.

More than 50% of the papers report good correlations between economic freedom (as measured by the index) and good outcomes (faster economic growth, higher living standards, reduced conflict, etc.), while about 45% report...