Co-published by the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, and the Liberales Institut at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the Index “presents the state of human freedom in the world based on a broad measure that encompasses personal, civil, and economic freedom.”
“Human freedom is a social concept that recognises the dignity of individuals and is defined here as negative liberty or the absence of coercive constraint. Because freedom is inherently valuable and plays a role in human progress, it is worth measuring carefully”, the authors Ian Vásquez and Tanja Porcnik explain.
The Human Freedom Index claims to be a resource “that can help to more objectively observe relationships between freedom and other social and economic phenomena, as well as the ways in which the various dimensions of freedom interact with one another.”
Heading this year’s list is Hong Kong, followed by Switzerland and Finland.
At the bottom of the compilation are Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Iran, in 152nd.
Other countries rank as follows: Ireland (8), UK (9), Germany (12), Chile (18), Japan (28), France (33), Singapore (43), South Africa (70), India (75), Brazil (82), Russia (111), China (132), Nigeria (139), Saudi Arabia (141), Venezuela (144) and Zimbabwe (149).
According to the HFI, countries in the top quartile of freedom enjoy a “significantly higher per capita income ($30,006) than those in other quartiles; the per capita income in the least-free quartile is $2,615.” The HFI also found a “strong correlation between human freedom and democracy. Hong Kong is an outlier in this regard.”
Suggesting that freedom “plays an important role in human well-being”, the HFI’s findings offer “opportunities for further research into the complex ways in which freedom influences, and can be influenced by, political regimes, economic development, and the whole range of indicators of human well-being.”