Top 10 freest economies in the world
china.org.cn / chinagate.cn by Xu Lin, January 17, 2014 Adjust font size:
Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, Washington's No. 1 think tank, have published their 2014 Index of Economic Freedom.
Hong Kong, with an overall score of 90.1, retains its title of the world's freest economy, a remarkable distinction that it has received for 20 consecutive years. Its overall score is even slightly better than last year, thanks to improvements in government size and regulatory efficiency.
Singapore is the second freest economy, with an overall score of 89.4. It has closed the gap between itself and Hong Kong to only 0.7 points. Australia ranks third, with an overall score of 82.0.
The global average score of economic freedom has now reached 60.3, the highest ever in history, improved by 0.7 points from last year and 2.7 points from 1995, when the first index of its kind was launched.
Covering 186 economies across six regions, the index measures restrictions on business, trade, investment, finance, property rights and labor, and considers the impact of corruption, government spending and monetary control mechanisms.
Six economies have earned the designation of "free" with scores rising above 80, 28 are considered "mostly free" with scores varying between 70 and 80, and 56 are named "moderately free" with scores ranging from 60 to 70.
Here follows the top 10 freest economies in the world, the highest performing group.
Denmark
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Denmark [File photo] |
Overall: 76.1
Change: 0.0
Property rights: 90.0
Freedom from corruption: 93.7
Government spending: 0.5
Fiscal Freedom: 39.3
Business freedom: 98.1
Labor freedom: 91.2
Monetary freedom: 80.0
Trade freedom: 87.8
Investment freedom: 90.0
Financial freedom: 90.0
