Economic Freedom of the World 2007

Each year, James Gwartney and Robert Lawson do a fantastic job publishing the Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report. The 2007 vintage has just come out (see here). It is dedicated to Milton Friedman who was, with Michael Walker (the President of the Fraser Institute Foundation), the godfather behind the economic freedom project.

James Gwartney and Michael Walker offer two moving texts in which they share their memories of Milton Friedman. Gwartney reminds us of the exchange between Friedman and General William Westmoreland in 1969 on the elimination of the draft. Friedman famously replied to Westmoreland (who had explained that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries): “General, would you rather command an army of slaves?”

In the report last year, Bill Easterly offered his view of freedom vs. collectivism in foreign aid. This year, Russell Sobel and Peter Leeson have a paper on the spread of global economic freedom based on their working paper “Contagious Capitalism.”

As for the ranking of countries, Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Zealand are still occupying the first three spots.