Thirty years later, public policies and political institutions of the former socialist economies do not equally support economic freedom, just as they do not observe the same level of international trade, foreign direct investment, and income.
Past week, the Economic Freedom of the World: 2018 Annual Report was released. The report is based on data from 2016 and measures the economic freedom by analyzing the policies and institutions of 162 countries and territories.
The Visio institute has just published the second issue of The Visio Journal, which offers several papers analyzing the degree to which the public policies and political institutions of former socialist economies have been supportive of economic freedom following the collapse of communism.
Global geography of economic freedom tells much about values. Economic freedom is far from being able to conduct structural reforms and downsizing bureaucracy. Values should come first and only then be followed by cooperation in the form of geopolitical alliances, which guarantee freedom from repression.
Because of the binding constraints of European treaties and EU law, there are few remaining lines of attack against the Bank of Slovenia’s independence. This article places these developments within the normative and positive contexts of free markets.
Croatia is currently 61% economically free. There is no country with more than 90%. Therefore, Croatia’s competitive gap is much more than 39% deficit in economic freedom. Croatia’s challenge is to compete with much better countries of Central Eastern Europe.
We sometimes hear that the only type of liberalism we need today is “political liberalism” while classical liberal ideas in the economy can be neglected. The view that we need only political freedom, without a broad range of economic freedoms, is not isolated and requires a response.
The experience of dealing with Russia over the past 200 years has taught us that the only thing Russia respects is power; and we will only have power if we stay close to our friends. However, soon thereafter any such pragmatism was once again forgotten and we now continue living with our illusions as if nothing has happened.
The story of Singapore does not match the usual idea of combining democracy and the market economy. While in the developed countries of the West, democracy has been threatening the functioning of the market economy, Singapore and its authoritarian regime has maintained the status of the easiest country to do business in.
Continual restriction of economic and civil liberties may have fatal consequences. Even though we can freely choose to live in an unfree society, we have to be aware of the price we will eventually pay for it.
