By James Gwartney, Joshua Hall, and Robert Lawson with contributions from Christopher J. Coyne, John W. Dawson, Horst Feldmann, John Levendis, Russell L. Stobel, and Edward Peter Stringham.
About the Book
This year's report notes that economic freedom suffered its
first setback in decades. The average economic freedom score rose
from 5.55 (out of 10) in 1980 to 6.70 in 2007, but fell back to
6.67 in 2008, the most recent year for which data are available. Of
the 123 countries with chain-linked ratings in 2007 and 2008, 88
exhibited rating decreases and only 35 recorded rating increases.
In this year's index, Hong Kong retains the highest rating for
economic freedom, 9.05 out of 10, followed by Singapore, New
Zealand, Switzerland, Chile, the United States, Canada, Australia,
Mauritius, and the United Kingdom.View inside the
report
About the Authors
AUTHORSJames 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). His publications have
appeared in both professional journals and popular media such as
the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times .
He served as Chief Economist of the Joint Economic Committee of the
US Congress during 1999/2000. He was invited by the incoming Putin
Administration in March 2000 to make presentations and have
discussions with leading Russian economists concerning the future
of the Russian economy. In 2004, he was the recipient of the Adam
Smith Award of the Association of Private Enterprise Education for
his contribution to the advancement of free-market ideals. He is
the current President of the Southern Economic Association. His
Ph.D. in economics is from the University of Washington.Robert A. Lawson is Associate Professor in the
Department of Finance at Auburn University where he is Co-Director
of the Center for International Finance and Global Competitiveness
and Director of the Economic Freedom Initiative. Previously, he
taught at Capital University, where he held the George H. Moor
Chair, 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. He writes regularly for
DivisionOfLabour.com. He earned his B.S. in economics from the
Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University and his M.S. and Ph.D.
in economics from Florida State University.Joshua Hall is an assistant professor in the
Department of Economics and Management at Beloit College in Beloit,
Wisconsin. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in economics from Ohio
University and his Ph.D. from West Virginia University. Formerly an
economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress, he
has published numerous policy studies and professional
publications. Professor Hall's research has appeared in journals
such as the Atlantic Economic Journal, Cato Journal, Journal of
Economic Education, and Journal of Labor
Research.
Praise for Previous Editions
"The conclusion [of the economic freedom project] is abundantly
clear: the freer the economy, the higher the growth and the richer
the people. Countries that have maintained a fairly free economy
for many years did especially well."-The Economist
