Economic Freedom of the World 2017 Annual Report

You can download the PDF of the 2017 Report here.

The Economic Freedom of the World: 2017 Annual Report shows that people living in countries with high levels of economic freedom enjoy greater prosperity, more political and civil liberties, and longer life spans. The cornerstones of economic freedom include personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and security of private property

The Economic Freedom of the World: 2017 Annual Report lists the United States as the 11th freest economy, tying with Canada. The United States’ ranking this year shows an overall improvement from previous reports over the last decade. Hong Kong and Singapore again top the index, continuing their streak as 1st and 2nd respectively. New Zealand, Switzerland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Mauritius, Georgia, Australia, and Estonia round out the top ten. Venezuela is again ranked as the lowest in economic freedom out of 159 countries and territories.

Notably, this year researchers for the first time were able to adjust the rankings for gender equality. In countries where women are not legally accorded the same level of economic freedom as men, that country receives a lower score. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa were predominantly affected by this adjustment, which resulted in a notable downgrade in their overall summary score.

James Gwartney holds the Gus A. Stavros Eminent Scholar Chair at Florida State University, where he directs the Stavros Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Economic Education. He is a coauthor of Economics: Private and Public Choice (Cengage/South-Western Press), a widely used text on the principles of economics that is now in its twelfth edition. He is also a coauthor of an economics primer, Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know about Wealth and Prosperity (St. Martin’s Press, 2005).
Robert A. Lawson holds the Jerome M. Fullinwider Endowed Centennial Chair in Economic Freedom and is director of the O’Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom at the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Cox School of Business. Prior to SMU, he taught at Auburn University, Capital University, and Shawnee State University. Professor Lawson has numerous professional publications in journals such as Public Choice, Cato Journal, Kyklos, Journal of Labor Research, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, and European Journal of Political Economy. He has served as president of the Association of Private Enterprise Education and is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Joshua Hall is the Director of the Center for Free Enterprise and an Associate Professor of Economics at West Virginia University. Prior this position, he was the Elbert H. Neese, Jr. Professor of Economics at Beloit College and an economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress. Dr. Hall has published in numerous policy studies and professional publications, his research having appeared in journals such as the Atlantic Economic Journal, Cato Journal, Journal of Economic Education, and Journal of Labor Research.