Data source: Fraser Institute
The index published in Economic Freedom of the World measures the degree to which countries' policies and institutions support economic freedom. The cornerstones of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to enter markets and compete, and security of the person and privately owned property. The EFW index now ranks 165 countries and territories. Data are available for more than 100 nations and territories back to 1950. This dataset makes it possible for scholars to analyze the impact of both cross-country differences in economic freedom and changes in that freedom across a time frame of three and a half decades.
For a consistent time series for a particular country and/or longitudinal data for a panel of countries, the Fraser Institute previously developed and reported a chain-linked version of the index. The EFW Panel Dataset is now entirely based on the chain-linking method, having the base year as 2020, and they will make the most recent year’s data the base year in the future.
Changes in a country’s scores backward in time are based only on changes in components that were present in adjoining years. It should be noted that the EFW Panel Dataset contains area and summary ratings only for those years in which the country received a regular EFW index rating.
When using this dataset, please cite as:
(Gwartney et al.,
2024)
Browse variables and select them for download.
fi_ftradeint
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``increasing tax rate on international trade'', ``slow import or export process'', ``small trade sectors relative to the population and geographic siz ...
fi_ftradeint_pd
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``increasing tax rate on international trade'', ``slow import or export process'', ``small trade sectors relative to the population and geographic siz ...
fi_index
The index is founded upon objective components that reflect the presence (or absence) of economic freedom. The index comprises 21 components designed to identify the consistency of institutional arran ...
fi_index_hist
The index is founded upon objective components that reflect the presence (or absence) of economic freedom. The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to "less economic freedom'' and 10 to "more ec ...
fi_index_pd
The index is founded upon objective components that reflect the presence (or absence) of economic freedom. The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to "less economic freedom'' and 10 to "more ec ...
fi_legprop
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``no judicial independence'', ``no trusted legal framework exists'', ``no protection of intellectual property'', ``military interference in rule of la ...
fi_legprop_pd
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``no judicial independence'', ``no trusted legal framework exists'', ``no protection of intellectual property'', ``military interference in rule of la ...
fi_reg
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``low percentage of deposits held in privately owned banks'', ``high foreign bank license denial rate'', ``private sector's share of credit is close t ...
fi_reg_pd
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``low percentage of deposits held in privately owned banks'', ``high foreign bank license denial rate'', ``private sector's share of credit is close t ...
fi_sm
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``high annual money growth'', ``high variation in the annual rate of inflation'', ``high inflation rate'', and ``restricted foreign currency bank acco ...
fi_sm_pd
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``high annual money growth'', ``high variation in the annual rate of inflation'', ``high inflation rate'', and ``restricted foreign currency bank acco ...
fi_sog
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``large general government consumption'', ``large transfer sector'', ``many government enterprises'', and ``high marginal tax rates and low income thr ...
fi_sog_pd
The index ranges from 0-10 where 0 corresponds to ``large general government consumption'', ``large transfer sector'', ``many government enterprises'', and ``high marginal tax rates and low income thr ...