1979 The Index of Economic Freedom

For 12 years the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal have cooperated on the Index of Economic Freedom, and today's article in the WSJ compared the freedom outcomes of two small countries, Estonia, which has moved quickly with reforms and Chile which has moved slowly. Estonia is 7th and Chile is 14th.

"The Index measures 161 countries against a list of 50 independent variables divided into 10 broad factors of economic freedom. Low scores are more desirable; the higher the score on a factor, the greater the level of government interference in the economy, and the less economic freedom a country enjoys. . . A systematic analysis of these factors continues to demonstrate that countries with the highest levels of economic freedom also have the highest living standards."

The nice thing about using the website is that you can select the variables and see how different countries compare within their regions. Canada and the U.S. are almost always neck and neck whether it is wages, or trade policies; except for fiscal burden, and there Canadians have us beat (lower score is better). Here's the executive summary--note particularly what is happening in Latin America where Chile is the poster child for economic freedom and all the rest are marginal or repressed. Three countries in Latin America made the 10 most worsened list.