The Economist writes: “The Heritage Foundation‘s annual index of economic freedom produced a surprise: America fell out of the top ten for the first time since the measure was created in 1995. The index gave the top honour to Hong Kong, followed by Singapore. Haiti suffered the steepest drop in its rating since last year, and North Korea took the wooden spoon again.”
The US fell to the rank of 12 out of 161, but it hasn’t been #1 for a while.
However, Stefan Karlsson at the Mises blog argues that the Heritage Foundation’s methology is seriously flawed. As always, it is good to be wary of statistical measures, especially of such a high degree of aggregation. And Mr. Karlsson makes some good points.
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Libertarian political philosopher, writer, editor, and web designer. He is the founder of the