Theory and Evidence on Economic Freedom and Economic Growth: A

Altman (2007) examines the impact of economic freedom, including its various component parts, on aggregate economic performance across countries. He claims that some of the component parts of economic freedom, measured primarily with the Economic Freedom of the World index, are correlated positively with higher levels of per capita income and growth while others are not. He also attempts to identify "threshold effects " within the data that indicate differential impacts of economic freedom on economic performance at different levels. Although both questions are worthwhile, ultimately his efforts are unconvincing for both theoretical and empirical reasons which we discuss. The authors would like to thank John Conley and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies