The most ambitious study of its kind, the Economic Freedom Index (EFI), published annually in Economic Freedom of the World, has inspired scholars to examine more closely the effect of economic freedom on economic growth, income equality, and quality of life. Although not without limitations, the EFI supports Adam Smith’s contention that free-market processes, more than any alternatives, can advance wealth and welfare.

Niclas Berggren is an associate professor of economics at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) in Stockholm; he is also affiliated with the Department of Institutional Economics at the University of Economics in Prague.
Economic PolicyEconomyFree Market EconomicsGovernment and PoliticsLaw and LibertyPolitical Theory
Other Independent Review articles by Niclas Berggren
Winter 2013/14 The Calculus of Consent at Fifty: Insights for Liberalism