Fraser Institute Index of Economic Freedom
The Fraser Institute's economic freedom index is yet another right-wing ploy, but peddled with the wide-eyed earnestness so typical of Canadians ("Free the World!" is the project's slogan). Actually, the Fraser index is in some ways more sophisticated than that offered by Freedom House, based on better sources (including country risk outfit ICRG, see our review in the "Reviews" section). The website isn't as nice, though. Hopping to country pages only gets you overall scores, not sub-scores and a writeup. However, all the sub-data, stretching back to 1975, is available as an Excel spreadsheet if desired.
KEYWORDS: economic openness, regulatory quality, economic stability
Updated April 18, 2004