World Map of Economic Freedom

Source: Heritage Foundation (2012)

The Heritage Foundation measures ten components of economic freedom, assigning a grade in each using a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the maximum freedom. The 10 economic freedoms are grouped into four broad categories or pillars of economic freedom:

  1. Rule of Law (property rights, freedom from corruption);
  2. Limited Government (fiscal freedom, government spending);
  3. Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom); and
  4. Open Markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom).

Each of the freedoms within these four broad categories is individually scored on a scale of 0 to 100. A country’s overall economic freedom score is a simple average of its scores on the 10 individual freedoms.

Top 10 Countries

 Country Rank
 Hong Kong 1
 Singapore 2
 Australia 3
 New Zealand 4
 Switzerland 5
 Canada 6
 Chile 7
 Mauritius 8
 Ireland 9
 United States 10