This is the 29th edition of Economic Freedom of the World and this year’s publication ranks 165 countries and territories for 2022, the most recent year for which data are available.
In last year’s report, Singapore edged out Hong Kong for the top spot for the first time. In this year’s edition, based on updated and revised data for 2021 and new data for 2022, Hong Kong scored ahead of Singapore in both years. Despite this reversal in the ranking, Hong Kong’s rating continues to fall precipitously. The next highest scoring nations are Switzerland, New Zealand, the United States, Denmark, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and Luxembourg.
The rankings of some other major countries are Japan (11th), Germany (16th), Taiwan (19th), Korea (32nd), France (36th), Italy (51st), Mexico (65th), India (84th), Brazil (85th), China (104th), and Russia (119th). The 10 lowest-rated countries are: Yemen, Libya, Iran, Argentina, Myanmar, Algeria, Syria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela.
Global economic freedom has declined in each of the three years since the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, erasing more than a decade of gains.
Nations in the top quartile of economic freedom had an average per capita GDP of $52,877 in 2022, compared to $6,968 for bottom quartile nations. Interestingly, the average income of the poorest 10% in the most economically free nations is more than the average income of all people in the least free nations. Life expectancy is 80.5 years in the top quartile compared to 64.9 years in the bottom quartile.
The first Economic Freedom of the World Report, published in 1996, was the result of a decade of research by a team which included several Nobel Laureates and over 60 other leading scholars in a broad range of fields, from economics to political science, and from law to philosophy.
