Economy Map of Economic Freedom in Europe

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Maciamo

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I have added a new map of Economic Freedom in my Social & Economic Maps of Europe. This map is based on the Index of Economic Freedom (2016) created by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal.

Economic_Freedom_2016.png


It is shocking, though not entirely surprising to see how poorly Latin countries perform compared to Germanic countries. France and Italy in particular have scores of economic freedom that in the same category as developing countries. Greece is the least free of all developed countries, and less free that most developing countries. Even Belgium is less free economically than countries like Botswana, Jordan or Malaysia.

The categories that ail Latin countries most are fiscal freedom (Belgium and France ranked as repressed, Italy and Spain as mostly unfree) and labour freedom (France and Portugal ranked as repressed, Italy and Spain as mostly unfree).

Italy also suffers from poor property rights and financial freedom.

Corruption is rampant in all East Slavic and Balkanic countries as well as in Italy, but that's not news. In fact the only countries in the world that are relatively free of corruption are Germanic countries (and Botswana). I have noted before that there seem to be a fairly strong correlation between the percentage of Germanic/Nordic ancestry and low levels of corruption. Non-Germanic countries with moderate Germanic ancestry (as attested by the presence of Y-haplogroups I1 and R1b-U106 in particular), like Ireland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, France, Spain and Portugal all have moderate corruption (or even low in Ireland's case).

European countries are almost all ranked as repressed for government spendings. Notable exceptions are Switzerland, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria, which are ranked as moderately free. Not sure it's a good thing since most the countries that are ranked as free in this category are the poorest, least developed and least democratic in the world (places like Congo, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Somalia, Iran or Afghanistan).
 
To me there seems to be some logic in the map and the comments.
Belgium loses its advantage of its central location due to inefficiencies created by the famous 'Belgian compromise' of which so many of our politicians seem to be proud.
 
What always surprises me is that there are quite few well run economies with proven concepts of economic success, but not too many countries willing to duplicate this successful models. To invent something good is hard, to copy should be damn easy, one would think.
 
LeBrok said:
What always surprises me is that there are quite few well run economies with proven concepts of economic success, but not too many countries willing to duplicate this successful models. To invent something good is hard, to copy should be damn easy, one would think.
Click to expand...

ther are always some priviliged with political power (often politicians themselves) that profit from not doing some particular reforms
 
bicicleur said:
ther are always some priviliged with political power (often politicians themselves) that profit from not doing some particular reforms
Click to expand...
Few stubborn people in elite shouldn't matter. It is up the the people to pick government able to repeat and copy other's success. It might be a sad case that most electorate can't understand economy. At least well enough to make a smart choice of government. In this case it should be addressed in easier way. Why don't a candidate or president say "Let's copy Swiss economy"? New economic program understandable by all, "We will copy Swiss success".
 
LeBrok said:
Few stubborn people in elite shouldn't matter. It is up the the people to pick government able to repeat and copy other's success. It might be a sad case that most electorate can't understand economy. At least well enough to make a smart choice of government. In this case it should be addressed in easier way. Why don't a candidate or president say "Let's copy Swiss economy"? New economic program understandable by all, "We will copy Swiss success".
Click to expand...

many political parties are linked to the unions or to the medical and social securitie systems
and you need to make a coalition with one or two of them to get the majority together
 
bicicleur said:
many political parties are linked to the unions or to the medical and social securitie systems
and you need to make a coalition with one or two of them to get the majority together
Click to expand...
My point was that if people, the voters, were smart enough to understand economy, they would have voted in the right party.
 
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