Not as free as she used to be. That’s the verdict from the Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report on the U.S., which fell to 18th in the rankings this year. America was consistently in the top five from 1975-2002, but has since quickly lost ground, going from 12th to 18th since 2009. This year’s ranking is the lowest showing for the U.S. since the study started.
Taking the Top 10 spots were: Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia and Canada (tied), Bahrain, Mauritius, Finland, Chile. The bottom ranked countries: Venezuela was lowest, followed by Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Republic of Congo, and Angola.
The Fraser Institute, a free-market think tank in Canada, and the Washington-based Cato Institute use 41 measures of economic freedom to rank 144 countries. On the bright side, average freedom all over the world is slightly up over 2011. Their definition of economic freedom:
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by Mary Katharine Ham
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