New Zealand and Australia have maintained their rankings of fourth and third respectively as the freest economies in the world.The 2010 Index of Economic Freedom, compiled by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, ranks countries on 10 measu
New Zealand and Australia have maintained their rankings of fourth and third respectively as the freest economies in the world.
The 2010 Index of Economic Freedom, compiled by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, ranks countries on 10 measures that correlate freedom with economic prosperity.
Hong Kong and Singapore also retained their first and second placing.
The big surprise is that for the time the US has fallen out of the elite group.
The US lost ground in seven of the 10 categores and was the largest decliner overall among the 179 countries that were ranked.
The Journal says the US losses are particularly significant in the areas of financial and monetary freedom, and property rights.
“Driving it all were the federal government's interventionist responses to the financial and economic crises of the last two years, which have included politically influenced regulatory changes, protectionist trade restrictions, massive stimulus spending and bailouts of financial and automotive firms deemed ‘too big to fail,’” the Journal reports.
“These policies have resulted in job losses, discouraged entrepreneurship and saddled America with unprecedented government deficits.”
The US fell to eighth from sixth, replaced by Switzerland and Canada.
Others to fall include the UK and China, while Poland, Korea, Mexico, Japan, Germany and France have maintained or expanded economic freedom despite the global crisis.
