Hong Kong – Opinions

Sept. 21, Robert Lawson, director of the Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom at the SMU Dallas Cox School of Business, for a commentary about Hong Kong’s slide from the top spot on the Economic Freedom Index. Published in the Orange County Register under the heading A blow to liberty: Hong Kong is no longer No. 1 in economic freedom: https://tinyurl.com/54rya375

In the late 1980s at the invitation of Milton Friedman and Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute in Canada, I became involved in a project to measure economic freedom. The resulting Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index, published annually since 1996, provides economic freedom ratings for up to 165 countries and jurisdictions as far back as 1970. In each and every published edition of the EFW index, Hong Kong had been rated as the most economically free economy – that is, until now. The newly released EFW index has downgraded Hong Kong to second place with Singapore now taking top honors.

Hong Kong’s five-decade reign as the most economically free jurisdiction in the EFW index was no surprise to those of us compiling the data. We remember watching Milton and Rose Friedman’s Free To Choose series on PBS in the 1980s that celebrated the territory’s economic freedoms, and the data we collected reflected what we saw on the show.

Continue reading “A blow to liberty: Hong Kong is no longer No. 1 in economic freedom”

May 17, Robert Lawson, director of the Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom at the SMU Dallas Cox School of Business, for an essay about how average people are more likely to prosper in counties that are more free and less regulated. Published in Inside Sources under the heading Is It Better to Be Rich in a Poor and Unfree Country?: https://tinyurl.com/mtbv3duf

Like many economics professors, I frequently get emails from a variety of cranks and conspiracy theorists. Occasionally, I get an interesting email question about my research on economic freedom. It’s complicated, but in a nutshell, my work generally shows that countries with more economic freedom (i.e., lower taxes, stronger private property rights, less inflation, freer trade and fewer regulations) perform better on most, if not all, measures of socio-economic progress.

Recently, an email correspondent who lives in Hong Kong asked: How can Hong Kong and Singapore, the countries with the highest economic freedom in the world, also be two places that are “so expensive that you won’t have sufficient funds to have personal financial freedom?” He continued, “I am wondering how we, as people who love free-market capitalism, can reconcile this? How can the ‘best’ (most capitalist) countries in the world also be some of the most difficult to get by in?”

Continue reading “Is It Better to Be Rich in a Poor and Unfree Country?”