Economic freedom

The Economic Freedom of the World index, created by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think-tank, measures how consistent countries' policies are with economic freedoms, including personal choice, competition and property rights. In this year's report Hong Kong was still the most economically free country of the 123 surveyed. The least free countries are found in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The Fraser Institute says that economic freedom is highly correlated with the human-development index, as measured by the United Nations.