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Examining the Hayek–Friedman Hypothesis on Economic and Political Freedom

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  • Sydney Head and Neck Cancer Institute, Lifehouse at RPA
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Abstract

This paper examines empirically the hypothesis made famous by Nobel Laureates Friedrich A. Hayek and Milton Friedman that societies with high levels of political freedom must also have high levels of economic freedom. In our judgment, the Hayek–Friedman hypothesis holds up fairly well to historical scrutiny. Using data on economic and political freedom for a sample of up to 123 nations back as far as 1970, we find relatively few instances of societies combining relatively high political freedom without relatively high levels of economic freedom. In addition, we find that these cases are diminishing over time. Finally, we examine several cases of countries on different economic and political freedom journeys.

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... This appears to form the overlapping consensus of many scholars in this field and has inspired empirical tests. The so-called 'Hayek-Friedman-hypothesis' is the most prominent example (Lawson and Clark, 2010). It concedes the fact that non-democratic regimes which have achieved a high level of economic freedom are at least theoretically possible, even though this combination may be considered unlikely or unstable (see above); only in this case would low scores of political freedom coincide with high scores of economic freedom (ibid.). ...
... The Hayek-Friedman-hypothesis rules out the concomitance of democracy with low scores of economic freedom; no democracy, as Friedman states, has ever established a planned economy (Friedman, 1962). According to the Hayek-Friedman-hypothesis, the coinciding of political freedom and capitalism is the more likely combination, which is supported by empirical tests (Lawson and Clark, 2010). Acemoglu and Robinson (2012), in turn, give causal priority to democracy when a free market order is to be established. ...
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The paper interrogates the argument put forward by Acemoglu and Robinson or North et al. that capitalism and democracy are supportive to each other. It analyzes the development of political and economic institutions in Germany before and after World War I. It is shown that the lack of democracy in Imperial Germany furthered a liberal economic order and gives reasons why the transition to full-scale parliamentarianism would have impaired the quality of economic institutions. This also explains why such a transition was not completed. The Weimar Republic established a modern democracy but was unable to secure the quality of economic institutions achieved before. Not only in Germany did the politicization of the economy impair the economic order. This empirical outcome helps to explain why Eucken and other liberals identified democracy as part of the economic problem during the interwar period. It also gives reasons to rethink the complex relationship between capitalism and democracy.
... One of them is Pryor (2010), which takes a slightly different and broader perspective on economic freedom than usual, and concludes that although there is a cross-sectional positive correlation between political freedom and capitalism (economic freedom), there seems to be no relationship when one looks at historical data going back to the nineteenth century. However strong this conclusion is, Lawson and Clark (2010) come to just the opposite one, examining cross-country data over the period 1970-2005. According to their results, there are hardly any countries with relatively high political and low economic freedom. ...
... (2) Semi-strong interpretation (economic freedom is a necessary condition of political freedom): without economic freedom political democratization will not be very probable, and an undemocratic country with a higher level of economic freedom will have a better chance of becoming a democracy than one with a low level of economic freedom (e.g., Giavazzi and Tabellini 2005;Lawson and Clark 2010). ...
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This paper contributes to a theoretical underpinning of the economic freedom–political freedom relationship. We use the theory of social orders (North et al. in Violence and social orders: a conceptual framework for understanding recorded human history, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009) to look at the Hayek–Friedman Hypothesis (HFH), which leads us to propose a novel interpretation. The core insight of our weak interpretation of the hypothesis is that economic freedom is a necessary condition for maintaining political freedom in open access order countries (countries with high levels of both freedoms), i.e., once achieved, political freedom needs economic freedom to be stable; but the HFH is not relevant for limited access orders (rent-seeking-dominated orders). We find empirical support for the weak interpretation with canonical correlations and conditional logit regressions, using a panel database for 122 countries for the period 1980–2011.
... Finally, economic freedoms are associated with political freedoms, as per the Hayek-Friedman hypothesis. For instance, Lawson and Clark (2010) found "relatively few instances of societies combining relatively high political freedom without relatively high levels of economic freedom." ...
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This study examines the effect of U.S. Presidents and Secretaries of State visits to a country on institutional quality, particularly on economic freedom. Hence, the study develops a model that predicts the conditions under which official visits can enhance the quality of institutions. We compile variables on official visits from 1960 to 2019 from the archives of the U.S. State Department to test the predictions of our model. In addition, we use the endogenous treatment model estimation to deal with potential endogeneity. The estimation results show that the official visits have a statistically significant negative effect on economic freedom, particularly in non-democratic countries with less political freedom. The estimation results are robust with different types of visits and samples. The study presents multiple explanations for these results, including the possibility of the following: First, some American administrations adopt a pragmatic approach aimed at achieving strategic objectives while overlooking practices that do not enhance institutional quality. Second, these official visits may improve other aspects of institutional quality that are more observable to the international community than economic freedoms. Third, American policymakers care more about achieving short-term objectives from their visits that can be presented as accomplishments to their electorate rather than institutional reforms that will only yield benefits to the United States in the long run. Finally, economic freedoms are associated with political freedoms per the Hayek-Friedman hypothesis.
... Chile began the period under examination as a politically and economically turbulent country in the 1960s and 1970s. Shortly after Pinochet's coup in 1973, and during the 1980s, the country began to move in the direction of economic liberalism while remaining politically repressive (Lawson and Clark 2010). A synthetic control will allow observation of the direct 1 Gilson and Milhaupt (2011) argue that authoritarian regimes promote the economic success of their countries by taking them into global commerce. ...
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This article analyzes the impact of Augusto Pinochet’s autocracy on the Chilean economy. The study compares outcomes under Pinochet’s leadership with those in a synthetic counterfactual made of a weighted average of countries with similar characteristics. It finds that, relative to the control, Chilean income per capita greatly underperformed for at least the first fifteen years after Pinochet’s coup. The results are robust to extending the pool of donor countries and expanding the pretreatment period by switching data sets to capture potential heterogeneity of effects. The evidence suggests that Chile’s remarkable economic growth during the period 1985–1997 did not depend on Pinochet’s autocracy. These results further bring into question the effectiveness of the regime to enhance economic growth and the narrative of the Chilean miracle.
... 3 Further, both Hayek (1944) andFriedman (1962) argued that economic freedom is a prerequisite for other human rights and civil liberties. This hypothesis has been supported empirically with regard to political freedom (Lawson & Clark, 2010) as well as freedom of the press (Bjørnskov, 2018). In addition, restrictions on women's rights are more severe in countries that have less economic freedom (Fike, 2020). ...
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Storr and Choi (2019) present ample evidence that the market process results in outcomes that can be considered “moral”, however they do not address the potential moral implications of policy interventions that place restrictions on the market process. This essay poses, and begins to answer, a related question: is it immoral to stand in the way of the market process? Insights from market process theory are used to explore this question and to identify four ways in which impediments to markets, and not markets themselves, have the potential to corrupt our moral character: 1. They prevent people from accessing the benefits markets have been shown to provide. 2. They create incentives that encourage people to practice behaviors that are considered immoral. 3. They prevent people from actively participating in the development of their own moral character. 4. They prevent us from discovering new social rules that are morally superior to the ones that currently exist.
... The literature provides empirical verifications of this hypothesis, confirming that high political freedom almost cannot exist along with low economic freedom. Cases of countries that meet both conditions are in a decisive minority and expose that such countries gain economic freedom over time, which proves the validity of this hypothesis in the long run (Lawson and Clark, 2010). Moreover, it has been proved that economic freedom is required to maintain political freedom (Kapas and Czegledi, 2018). ...
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The main research question of this study is about the drivers of democracy backsliding during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a special focus on the rule of law and the state of democracy just before the shock. There is growing interest in the political implications of the coronavirus pandemic, debating mostly the misuse of emergencies and violations of various norms by governments; however the links between the current democracy erosion with institutional environment remain unclear. We use a novel global dataset covering the period of the first two waves of the pandemic (January-December 2020), and apply various econometric and machine learning tools to identify institutional, economic and social factors influencing democracy. Our results are of scientific and practical importance and imply that the stronger the rule of law and the higher the level of democracy, the lower the risk of democracy backsliding in the face of the pandemic.
... 6 The effect of the institutions of a given organization is a product of their context, which per polycentricity includes the set of organizations (and associated subsidiary institutions) that they include, the set of organizations of which they are part, and the set of organizations with which they compete (Ostrom 2010). 7 Despite the relationship between political and economic institutions being one long identified as crucial to social outcomes (Hayek 1944), the nature of this dynamic has remained one of perennial interest to institutional scholars (Hayek 1979, 105;Weingast 1995;Murmann 2003;North, Wallis and Weingast 2010;Lawson and Clark 2010), as well as economics scholars more broadly (Acemoglu and Robinson 2020), including those drawing upon the Austrian tradition (Holcombe 2018;Holcombe 2020). My unit of analysis, the output of public institutional processes, also avoids the entangled political economy critique surrounding the ultimately inseparable nature of the political and economic realms in a given society (Wagner 2016;Wagner 2020a). ...
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Defining rules politically poses the general question of which aspects of social ordering are tractable to public institutional resolution. But not all institutions emerge from the same processes of spontaneous ordering; self-interest subject to market discipline looks very different than self interest subject to political discipline. Because of the structural way in which changes to political rules result in distributional consequences compared to the political status quo, their emergence is fundamentally governed by the dynamics of political self-interest. In contrast, while the public definition of economic institutions is also governed by political self-interest, economic dynamics can redefine this political self-interest in socially beneficial ways. Through the analysis of the emergence of the Australian ballot and the general corporate form in the 19th Century US, I argue that public economic institutional change is a process more tractable to constructivist influence. This is because dynamic economic forces (which operate through mutually beneficial exchange) can disrupt political economic equilibria. In contrast, constructivist political change is necessarily competitive, which makes such change less intrinsically related to longer-term emergent benefits to social ordering.
... We will also try to assess the importance of competing hypotheses regarding political institutions. Given that economic and political freedoms are heavily correlated (Lawson and Clark 2010;Sobel and Coyne 2011), it could be the democratic nature of governments that lead them to be more responsive (Sen 1999). Thus, by virtue of their responsiveness, democracies could suffer lesser shocks. ...
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The 1918 flu pandemic constituted an exogenous shock on economic activity. In this paper, we condition the economic importance of these shocks on the level of economic freedom measured by the HIEL project (Prados de la Escosura 2016) to test whether freer economies fared better. Our argument is that higher levels of economic freedom meant a greater ability to adjust to shocks by reducing frictions in the reallocation of resources and the reorganization of economic activity. We find that higher levels of economic freedom mitigated the pandemic's effect. We link this finding with the literature on economic freedom and crises.
... My argument is a contribution to the Rawlsian project of reconciling political philosophy with public understandings and underpinnings of liberal society, as well as empirical observations of the relationship between economic and political liberty (Lawson and Clark 2010). Economic liberty is one necessary but emphatically insufficient condition for a stable liberal society, which means that it cannot be granted priority above other basic liberties. ...
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The moral status of economic liberty is a critical point of contention within liberal theory. Classical liberals, including Tomasi, suggest that economic activity is fundamental for exercising personal autonomy and its protection to be to the overall benefit of all persons. By contrast, egalitarian liberals, following Rawls, argue that economic activity is not a sufficiently significant site of moral development. Drawing on contemporary interpretations of Adam Smith, I argue that commercial practices cultivate attitudes of mutual trust and respect in a way that is unique and necessary for developing the moral powers. Although they need not be universally exercised, basic economic liberties must be available to all. While rejecting laissez-faire, this case suggests that well-ordered societies must protect a substantial degree of commercial activity as part of the basic structure.
... Most notably, Friedman (2009) argues that economic freedom is possible without democracy but that democracy cannot exist without some basic form of economic freedom. If the so-called Hayek-Friedman hypothesis is true, it might also mean that our empirical design suffers from endogeneity bias (Lawson and Clark, 2010). ...
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Empirical studies have shown democracies to be more supportive of pro-market institutions than authoritarian regimes; however, to date, it is virtually unknown through which channel democracy might actually create institutional improvements. In addition, causality between democracy and economic institutions is anything but clear, as competing hypotheses highlight. In this article, we examine the possible association of democratisation and political instability with sound monetary policy and the independence of central banks, both of which can be considered central pillars of an economic policy aimed at producing overall prosperity. Results mainly indicate that stable transitions to democracy are followed by strongly improved access to sound money and more independent central banks, probably because stable shifts to electoral democracy create incentives for policymakers to refrain from using monetary policy for short-run gains. Conversely, we also find evidence that especially unstable democratic transitions could impede the establishment of a more independent central bank, making inflationary policies and high money growth more likely.
... This historical evolution supported the thesis that economic freedom is a necessary condition for the adoption of democracy (Friedman 1962), but that socialism is incompatible with democracy (Hayek 1944). In fact, administered economies are rather poor and not democratic (Farrant and McPhail 2009), while economically free countries are rather rich (Hall and Lawson 2014) and democratic (Lawson and Clark 2010). ...
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The unprecedented reduction in popular support for democracy represents a risk of democratic deconsolidation. The new situation echoes old debates on the compatibility of democracy with capitalism and socialism. This article provides empirical support for the incompatibility of socialism with democracy by providing evidence suggesting that when citizens adopt egalitarianism as a supreme value, they are ready to sacrifice democracy for the sake of equality. Using individual data, we observe that the decline in support for democracy over generations and over time is accompanied by rising support for egalitarian values in US and European democracies. Moreover, democracies with stronger preferences for egalitarianism also have less public support for democracy, suggesting a tradeoff between both values.
... A common characteristic of democratic institutions is that they can promote (generally) economic freedom. Aixalá and Fabro (2009) and Lawson and Clark (2010) provide evidence that economic institutions are related to a country's level of political institutions, because on one hand the institutions that affect environmental performance (through economic growth) ...
... A common characteristic of democratic institutions is that they can promote (generally) economic freedom. Aixalá and Fabro (2009) and Lawson and Clark (2010) provide evidence that economic institutions are related to a country's level of political institutions, because on one hand the institutions that affect environmental performance (through economic growth) are distinct from the institutions of representative democracy and on the other hand economic institutions can be affected by democratic institutions. Moreover, some authors, such as Pellegrini and Gerlagh (2006) show that studies analysing the relationship between democratic institutions and environmental quality may be biased when they do not take into account the level of corruption. ...
... Kirmanoglu (2000) using the same methodology for 19 countries finds no relationship between economic freedom and political freedom for 14 countries in the study. Lawson and Clark (2010) have tested the direction of the causal relationship between economic freedom and political freedom. Using panel data of 123 countries over the perido 1970-2005 with five years interval found few instances of relatively high political freedom without relatively high levels of economic freedom. ...
... Although the causal mechanisms are still up for discussion, political rights and property rights protection are strongly correlated (Friedman 1962;Rode and Gwartney 2012;Voigt 2012). In particular, consistent with the Hayek-Friedman theory, there are virtually no examples of democratically stable countries without reasonably independent and functioning judicial institutions (Lawson and Clark 2010). Conversely, whereas at least some CPRs do tend to be correlated, the same is not likely to be the case for ESCRs. ...
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While the United Nations and NGOs are pushing for global judicialization of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCRs), little is known of their consequences. We provide evidence of the effects of introducing three types of ESCRs into the constitution: the rights to education, health, and social security. Employing a large panel covering annual data from 160 countries in the period 1960–2010, we find no robust evidence of positive effects of ESCRs. We do, however, document adverse medium‐term effects on education, inflation, and civil rights.
... Later, Hayek (1944) and Friedman (1962) would argue that economic freedom is a precondition for political freedom. Lawson and Clark (2010) find empirical support for the Hayek-Friedman hypothesis. Mousseau (2000Mousseau ( , 2002Mousseau ( , 2003Mousseau ( , 2005Mousseau ( , 2009Mousseau ( , 2013 argues that democracy is a descendent of contract-intensive economies, further highlighting the connection between economic freedom and democracy. ...
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In 1919, in the wake of the Central Power’s defeat in World War I, Ludwig von Mises published his second book, Nation, State, and Economy. The book explores the consequences of war and the type of political and economic arrangements likely to generate a lasting peace in the future. This paper reviews the book’s key themes regarding the relationship between war and the economy. We make connections between Mises’ insights and contemporary literature in order to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Nation, State, and Economy a century after its publication.
... This hypothesis states that, while some countries have economic freedom without political freedom, no country has political freedom without economic freedom. This hypothesis has support in the data in the modern world (Lawson and Clark 2010;Bjornskov 2018), although it may not held in the nineteenth century (Pryor 2010). If this hypothesis continues to hold, a democratic socialism which genuinely combines the collective ownership of the means of production with democracy cannot possibly persist for any period of time (in the recent past, Israel being the closest counterexample). ...
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Recent work at the frontiers of classical liberal political economy has reconsidered the idea that certain autocratic political institutions may improve on the consensus liberal, constitutional democratic political institutions. This paper will discuss conceptually how these new arguments, predatory forms of autocracy, the status quo of constitutional democracy, and the proponents of more majoritarian forms of democratic governance should be understood in terms of one another. It will then perform a simple empirical examination of the modern world, looking at the quality of governance by country by the quality of its democracy, conditional on a country’s economic output, education, and culture. Examples of autocracy with good governance, even when conditioning on these other variables, are sufficiently rare to raise serious questions for the new classical liberal proponents of autocracy.
... As discussed before, three possible channels are identified: government starvation, private property, and rule of law. (7) Finally, this paper obtains results in general qualitatively similar to those uncovered by Lawson and Clark (2010). Our results, however, are unveiled using econometric methods. ...
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Two important hypotheses for the determination of democracy are empirically investigated. First, the Lipset hypothesis, which establishes that increasing per capita GDP leads to democracy. Second, the Hayek-Friedman hypothesis, which states that property rights institutions lead to democracy. Using a logit model on a cross section of countries the evidence favors the Friedman´s hypothesis. A historical motivation is provided, and three possible channels are identified: 1) government "starvation" which curtails fiscal independence, 2) private property rights, which spills over personal liberties and political freedom, and 3) rule of law which historically precedes democracy.
... The Hayek-Friedman hypothesis states that economic freedom is a necessary condition for political liberalism (Lawson and Clark 2010). Economic freedom promotes important norms of individual rights, tolerance, and respect for the rule of law. ...
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... More conceptually benign tests of the HFH -with a relatively minimalist definition including free elections, full participation and political competition, but not specific policy or institutional choices -suggest that the main thrust of the hypothesis tends to fit empirical tests. Lawson and Clark (2010), for example, note that during the four decades in which measures of both freedoms have existed, no society without some minimum degree of economic freedom has succeeded in upholding democratic political freedom. While societies exist with high levels of economic freedom but little democracy or other aspects of political freedom -Singapore being the most obvious example -the opposite combination is extremely rare, suggesting that economic freedom is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sustained democracy. ...
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The Hayek–Friedman hypothesis states that economic freedom is causally associated with stable democracy. I test a particular element of the hypothesis focusing on press freedom, which is arguably a necessary component of any democratic polity. Combining the Freedom House index of press freedom and the Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom yields a large annual panel dataset between 1993 and 2011. Estimates show that improvements in economic freedom are associated with subsequent improvements of press freedom. The overall association is mainly driven by changes in market openness.
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The new institutional literature widely acknowledges the benefits of growth‐enhancing institutions but rarely discusses the path of institutional reform. While good institutions stabilize the structure of exchange and decrease uncertainty in market transactions, institutional reform may involve institutional volatility. If institutional volatility increases uncertainty, it can mitigate the benefits of reform. Using a sample of 89 countries from 2000‐2015, this paper empirically examines the effects of institutional volatility on economic growth. We find that institutional volatility decreases economic growth, particularly during liberalization for countries with low quality institutions and low income. In fact, a one standard deviation increase in volatility decreases growth by about 0.50 percentage points. This finding is robust to multiple estimation techniques and omitted variable bias. Evidence is provided suggesting that this effect is partially mediated through volatility's impact on private investment. These results support prior works that policy makers should pursue economic freedom, but our work indicates they should do so along a stable reform path to maximize economic growth.
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This paper finds evidence in support of the view that democracy further facilitates growth through middle income thresholds defined between $8000 and $15,000 GDP per capita. Recent studies suggest that rapidly developing economies experience an economic slowdown when per capita income approaches this range. Prior research indicates that structural reforms supportive of democracy are needed to transition beyond these thresholds. Our analysis corroborates these findings and may have important implications for rapidly growing countries approaching these income levels, such as China and India.
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This article assesses the relationship between democratic satisfaction and micro and macroeconomic factors in Africa. Studies have shown that economic factors represent a cornerstone of the democratic process. However, research has rarely accounted for the effect of economic freedom on satisfaction with democracy, and its conditional role on the effect of citizens’ economic evaluations, particularly in the context of Africa where democracy is still developing. Using various rounds of the Afrobarometer, the article analyses the link between citizens’ evaluations of the economy and economic freedom with their satisfaction with democracy in 32 African countries between 2002 and 2013. First, the findings show that the openness of the economic context and positive economic evaluations are associated with an increase in democratic satisfaction. Second, economic freedom and economic evaluations appear to have a conditional association with democratic satisfaction. In fact, positive economic evaluations are a less important factor for democratic satisfaction in contexts that have a freer economy.
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The objective of this research paper is to study the determinants of economic freedom of women and their impact on economic growth of Pakistan. A time series data is taken for the period of 1974-2014. The data was collected from World Bank Meta data of Pakistan, Economic survey of Pakistan and State Bank of Pakistan. Gross domestic product is taken as dependent variable while adult literacy rate of female, female employment in industrial sector, female employment in agriculture sector, fertility rate, unemployment ratio of female and labor force ratio of female are taken as independent variables. Auto Regressive Distributed Lag model was used to draw the results. The results show that female employment in industrial and Agriculture sector, unemployment ratio of female, adult literacy rate of female and labor force ratio of female have significant relation with the gross domestic product in the long run period. We suggest that government takes steps to increase the level of education and also promote the women empowerment in country.
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En Econintech nos vestimos de gala y orgullo el poder realizar nuestra primera edición de un libro precisamente en homenaje a uno de los más grandes luchadores por la libertad económica de Venezuela. Hugo, nuestro Senior Researcher & Policies Consultant, además de profesor y amigo es un guía en el arduo camino de la lucha intelectual por la libertad. Su trabajo es reconocido internacionalmente y esperamos que por medio de este libro, su alcance en Venezuela sea mayor. Un agradecimiento muy especial a todos los colaboradores por sus aportes y paciencia. Inicialmente estimamos lanzar la publicación en Agosto 2017, sin embargo, inconvenientes de última hora nos retardaron "la fiesta" que hoy podemos compartir. Este libro es lo que es por el cariño, respeto, admiración y consideración que todos ustedes demostraron tener por Hugo en el mismo momento que nos atrevimos, sin si quiera conocer a algunos, solicitarles una nota sobre uno de los artículos específicos. Sabemos que Hugo disfrutará leyendo, y quizás emerjan de él algunas gotas de felicidad, por el contenido de los mismos. Honor a quien honor se merece y aunque en un primer momento tuvimos que "negociar" el título "Homenaje" debido a su humildad, ahora te lo repetimos públicamente: Tú mereces este homenaje porque has dado mucho y no te has medido en consecuencias en tu lucha por la libertad. Así que Hugo, déjate homenajear. Y ahora disfrutemos todos de tu homenaje.
Chapter
The chapter defines what populism is, reviews the literature on the drivers of populism, and offers an empirical investigation into what makes populist agendas increasingly sellable after the Crisis. The impact of five main factors both before the Great Recession, and after it, is explored: depth of recessions, unemployment, inflation, austerity and income inequality. The impact of migration is achnowledged but left out due to data limitations. Fixed effects panel methods show that recessions are the most consistent predictor of populist resurgences. Unemployment also plays a role in spurring left-wing populist support. Surprisingly, austerity and income inequality rarely play a statistically significant role in shaping populist voter attitudes. Case studies from around the world bring additional support to the conclusions on both the empirical political economy of populism, and the relationship between economic freedom and welfare.
Article
Purpose AA number of political economy concerns are associated with the provision of foreign aid to developing economies. These concerns suggest that foreign aid is likely to have harmful effects on a recipient’s institutional quality; also that attempts to give aid conditional on policy and institutional reforms are unlikely to succeed. Established in 1996, the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative is a comprehensive, structured attempt to provide multilateral foreign aid conditional on recipient reforms. We aim to evaluate its effectiveness at affecting institutional reform in participating countries. Design/methodology/approach We document how participating countries fared in terms of the quality of their policies and institutions. We employ the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index as a measure of economic institutions; also the Freedom House political rights (PR) and civil liberties (CL) indices as measures of political rights and protections. Based on the measures, we report unconditional statistics (e.g., average changes) and also regressions of changes in the measures on HIPC Initiative aid allocations and other controls. Findings We find that most participating countries experienced either meager increases or outright decreases in institutional quality. Our regression results provide no evidence that the Initiative affects meaningful reforms. Originality/value The potential for foreign aid to have deleterious effects on the institutional quality of recipient countries has been of increasing concern to students of economic development. Such effects can have important implications for entrepreneurial activity in these countries. The HIPC Initiative is specifically designed to acknowledge and, indeed, overcome these concerns; leading to actual increases in recipient institutional quality. To our knowledge, our work is the first to assess whether the promise of the HIPC Initiative is being fulfilled.
Article
The relaxation of emigration restrictions in the Soviet Union and the State’s subsequent collapse led to a large exogenous shock to Israel’s immigrant flows because Israel allows unrestricted immigration for world-wide Jews. Israel’s population increased by 20 percent in the 1990s due to immigration from the former Soviet Union. These immigrants did not bring social capital that eroded the quality of Israel’s institutional environment. We find that economic institutions’ improved substantially over the decade. Our synthetic control methodology indicates that it is likely that the institutions improvement would not have occurred to the same degree without the mass migration. Our case study indicates that immigrant participation in the political process is the main mechanism through which the migration caused institutional change.
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For several years, the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) annual reports large set of nations around the world. 1 This index is designed to measure the degree to which a nation's policies and institutions protect its citizens' economic freedom. In this article, we explain the basic methodology employed in constructing the index and summarize the study's findings. What Is Economic Freedom? Any attempt to quantify economic freedom must begin with a solid theoretical under-standing of the concept. The EFW report holds the key ingredients of economic freedom to be personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and protection of person and property. Institutions and policies are consistent with economic freedom when they provide an infrastructure for voluntary exchange and protect individuals and their property from aggressors who seek to use violence, coercion, and fraud to seize things that do not belong to them. Legal and monetary arrangements are especially important: governments promote economic freedom when they provide a legal structure and a law-enforcement system that protect the property rights of owners and enforce contracts in an even-handed manner. They also enhance economic freedom when they facilitate access to sound money. In some cases, the government itself may provide a currency of stable value. In other instances, it may simply remove obstacles that retard the use of sound money that is 1 The most recent report is Gwartney and Lawson 2004. In this article, we draw heavily from the first chapter of that report.
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Each year the Fraser Institute and the Heritage Foundation (in conjunction with the Wall Street Journal) publish indexes of eco-nomic freedom, while the Freedom House publishes an index of political freedom around the world (Gwartney and Lawson 2002; O'Driscoll, Holmes, and Kirkpatrick 2002; Freedom House 2001). The explanations and graphs in those reports illustrate the relation-ships between each of the indexes and relevant socioeconomic vari-ables such as GDP growth, life expectancy, and measures of human development. What the annual reports suggest is that there is a posi-tive relationship between economic freedom and the standard of living, as well as between economic growth and political freedom. Although such assertions would appear to be intuitively correct, the reports do not undertake any rigorous empirical tests to provide sci-entific support to such relationships. The empirical analyses existing in the literature afford more or less clear, but inconclusive, results. They highlight the positive impact of economic freedom on growth, 1 or the ambiguous relationship between growth and political freedom. Fewer studies have been published on the association between the two types of freedom, but much attention is paid to the hypothesis of both being mutually enhancing. Such conclusions are open to criticism. Generally speaking, they depend on the choice of methodology and sample size. Moreover, a series of control variables must be included in the model for the analysis to be robust. In other words, there is a need for data on a-Gordillo is Professor of Quantitative Methods at the University of Navarra and an Adjunct Scholar at the Círculo de Empresarios in Madrid. José L. lvarez-Arce is a Professor of Economics at the University of Navarra. 1 Several of these empirical studies stress that economic freedom is one of the factors that affects economic development (e.g., Vanssay and Spindler 1994; Haan and Siermann 1998; Haan and Sturm 2000). See Vamvakidis (2002) for the connection between economic growth and trade openness. 199 broad range of variables, for a considerable number of countries, over a long period of time—a task whose complexity should not be under-estimated. Indeed, in many cases we are obliged to work with a small sample of countries and a small set of time observations. This prob-lem conditions the methodology to be used (Judson and Owen 1999). Under such circumstances, any new contribution on the subject is welcome, as far as it can offer additional evidence on the behavior of these variables and contribute to suitable institutional reform. It is along these lines that our study is intended. Our study adopts the general approach previously taken by Farr, Lord, and Wolfenbarger (1998), hereafter FLW, although with a different econometric technique. We do not try to analyze the vari-ables relevant to economic growth, 2 but rather to discern the causal relationships existing among economic freedom, democracy, and growth. With this aim in mind, we have structured the article as follows. First, we provide a review of what we regard to be some key ideas in the existing research on the relationships among the three variables. Second, we define economic and political freedom and briefly explain the most relevant ingredients used to build the indexes to measure them. Third, we develop the model we use to study and analyze the different associations and statistical relationships between the variables, and we succinctly explain the methodology. Finally, we examine the results and set out our conclusions.
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This paper addresses the issue of causality in the relationship between various types of institutions—namely, political and economic freedom—and long-run economic growth. It is shown that existing empirical studies of these relationships provide evidence of correlation, but not causation. Granger causality tests of freedom vs. growth, and freedom vs. investment are conducted using aggregate measures of freedom as well as underlying components of freedom when available. The results suggest which aspects of freedom are most important in fostering growth in a causal sense. The paper closes with a causal analysis of changes in the different types of freedom themselves.
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The paper explores empirically the impact of preceding growth and inflation crises on the extent of economic liberalization as measured by the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World-index. We find that deep crises are conducive to market-oriented policy reforms. The paper also finds evidence for a positive impact of democratic regimes and checks and balances on the extent of economic reforms. The popular thesis that fractionalized governments have a lower propensity to reform is clearly rejected.
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In recent years, a renewed interest has been shown in trying to further comprehend the factors that determine a country's rate of economic growth. This is important since a higher growth rate means greater national output, potentially higher living standards, and an enhanced ability to attain economic and social objectives. Earlier studies of the causes of economic growth focused on the importance of increasing exogenous quantities of physical resources (land, labor, and capital) to enhance the rate of growth, while more recent evidence suggests that growth is determined by a much larger set of endoge- nously determined variables.1 Institutional factors—the political and economic customs and prac- tices that exist within countries—have received particular attention in a number of recent studies. The importance of these factors lies in the fact that all economic decisions are made within a given institu- tional setting. And while it is difficult to know with certainty how these factors influence economic growth, it is generally assumed that greater economic and political freedom act as catalysts to enhance growth. But economic growth may also, in turn, enhance economic and political freedom.2
Article
Many empirical studies indicate that economic freedom in society is positively correlated with prosperity and growth, while democracy exhibits mixed correlations. However, these studies do not control for the possible interaction of these two types of freedoms or their respective influences on social welfare. This empirical analysis examines the interaction of economic freedom and democracy on measures of health, education, and disease prevention in society. The results imply that greater economic freedom consistently enhances these welfare measures, even among more democratic countries. Democracy has a smaller positive influence that disappears for many welfare measures in countries with more economic freedoms.
Article
This empirical analysis seeks to determine which institutional arrangement, capitalism or democracy, tends to be more effective at improving women's well-being and promoting gender equality in society. Country-specific indexes measuring the degree of economic freedoms that exist within the market and the degree of political rights that exist within a democracy are used in a panel data analysis to explain the observed levels of various quality of life measures reflecting issues that are relevant to women. These empirical results indicate that capitalism often has a stronger beneficial impact on many aspects of women's well-being and gender equality in society.
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In Two Lucky People, Rose and Milton Friedman provide a memorable and lively account of their lives, the people they knew, and the work they shared. Their involvement with world leaders and many of this century's most important public policy issues moves their memoir beyond the merely personal and makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the history of twentieth-century ideas. "The Friedmans come across as the last Enlightenment thinkers in a post-modern world. . . . This is a book that restores your faith in reasoned discourse. . . . There really are people who believe in scholarly exchange as a way to discover truth."—David Brooks, New York Times Book Review "The Friedmans are a feisty couple, who clearly delight in their lives and each other. And shining through their reticence, and their conservatism, is a decency that even liberals will recognize."—Milton and Judith Viorst, Washington Post Book World "This engaging book recounts the life and contributions of one of America's most influential writers and economists in the second half of the twentieth century. And her husband's no slouch either. . . . An indispensable guide through the evolution of economic thought."—Stephen Moore, National Review "A thought-provoking book and one rich in history, the personal history of the Friedmans . . . and the cultural and political history of our country."—Steve Huntley, Chicago Sun-Times Books "[Two Lucky People] is almost like a letter from a couple of old friends—a couple of old friends who had a long, compelling intellectual journey, came to know some of the great world leaders of this century, and had 60 years of happy, supportive marriage."—N. Gregory Mankiw, Fortune "A rich autobiographical and historical panorama."—William P. Kucewicz, Wall Street Journal
Article
In the classic bestseller, Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman presents his view of the proper role of competitive capitalism—the organization of economic activity through private enterprise operating in a free market—as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. Beginning with a discussion of principles of a liberal society, Friedman applies them to such constantly pressing problems as monetary policy, discrimination, education, income distribution, welfare, and poverty. "Milton Friedman is one of the nation's outstanding economists, distinguished for remarkable analytical powers and technical virtuosity. He is unfailingly enlightening, independent, courageous, penetrating, and above all, stimulating."-Henry Hazlitt, Newsweek "It is a rare professor who greatly alters the thinking of his professional colleagues. It's an even rarer one who helps transform the world. Friedman has done both."-Stephen Chapman, Chicago Tribune
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A classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in England in the spring of 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program—The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would inevitably lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of nazi Germany and fascist Italy. First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate attention from the public, politicians, and scholars alike. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 were sold. In April of 1945, Reader's Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this condensation to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best-seller, the book has sold over a quarter of a million copies in the United States, not including the British edition or the nearly twenty translations into such languages as German, French, Dutch, Swedish, and Japanese, and not to mention the many underground editions produced in Eastern Europe before the fall of the iron curtain. After thirty-two printings in the United States, The Road to Serfdom has established itself alongside the works of Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and George Orwell for its timeless meditation on the relation between individual liberty and government authority. This fiftieth anniversary edition, with a new introduction by Milton Friedman, commemorates the enduring influence of The Road to Serfdom on the ever-changing political and social climates of the twentieth century, from the rise of socialism after World War II to the Reagan and Thatcher "revolutions" in the 1980s and the transitions in Eastern Europe from communism to capitalism in the 1990s. F. A. Hayek (1899-1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1974, was a pioneer in monetary theory and the principal proponent of libertarianism in the twentieth century. On the first American edition of The Road to Serfdom: "One of the most important books of our generation. . . . It restates for our time the issue between liberty and authority with the power and rigor of reasoning with which John Stuart Mill stated the issue for his own generation in his great essay On Liberty. . . . It is an arresting call to all well-intentioned planners and socialists, to all those who are sincere democrats and liberals at heart to stop, look and listen."—Henry Hazlitt, New York Times Book Review, September 1944 "In the negative part of Professor Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often—at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough—that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of."—George Orwell, Collected Essays
Article
In 1980 Friedrich Hayek wrote to Paul Samuelson complaining about the role that Economics had played in discrediting the thesis of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. In the 11th edition of Economics, Samuelson had written that "each step away from the market system and towards the social reform of the welfare state is inevitably a journey that must end in a totalitarian state." Given the apparent prevalence of this reading of Hayek's thesis, we assess the dispute over Hayek's 'inevitability thesis' and whether Hayek's complaints were justified.
Article
This paper outlines the alternative channels through which institutions affect growth and studies the empirical relationship between institutions, investment, and growth. The empirical results indicate that (1) free-market institutions have a positive effect on growth; (2) economic freedom affects growth through both a direct effect on total factor productivity and an indirect effect on investment; (3) political and civil liberties may stimulate investment; (4) an important interaction exists between freedom and human capital investment; (5) Milton Friedman's conjectures on the relation between political and economic freedom are correct; and (6) promoting economic freedom is an effective policy toward facilitating growth and other types of freedom. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.
Article
Log-linear methods are applied to categorical data containing economic freedom, political freedom, the level of income, and the rate of economic growth for a panel of about 100 countries from 1975 to 1992. The main results are: given economic freedom, the rate of economic growth is independent of political freedom and the level of income; given the level of income, political freedom is independent of economic freedom and the growth rate. The analysis suggests the fundamental effects of economic freedom in fostering economic growth, and a high level of income as the condition of a high degree of political freedom. Copyright 1999 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
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This paper examines the relationship between economic and political freedom, focusing on developing countries. We conclude that increases in economic freedom between 1975 and 1990 are to some extent caused by the level of political freedom. This result shows up for all measures of political freedom that we employ. Our conclusion also holds for the sample without outliers. These outlying observations are identified using so-called robust estimation techniques.
[Rpt 2001]. Man, Economy and State
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  • M. Rothbard
Scorecard on the Israeli Economy: A Review of 1993
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Gwartney, J., Lawson, R., 2007. Economic Freedom of the World: 2007 Annual Report. Fraser Institute, Vancouver. Hayek, F., 1939. [Rpt 1997]. Freedom and economic system. In: Caldwell, B. (Ed.), The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, Socialism and War: Essays, Documents, Reviews, vol. 10. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 189–211.
The Road to Serfdom Do crises promote the extent of economic liberalization? An empirical test
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Hayek, F., 1944. [Rpt 1976]. The Road to Serfdom. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Pitlik, H., Wirth, S., 2003. Do crises promote the extent of economic liberalization? An empirical test. European Journal of Political Economy 19, 565–581.
Scorecard on the Israeli Economy: A Review of 1993. The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies
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Rabushka, A., 1994. Scorecard on the Israeli Economy: A Review of 1993. The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, Tel Aviv.
Preface " in James Gwartney and Robert Lawson, Economic Freedom of the World
  • Milton Friedman
Friedman, Milton. 2002. " Preface " in James Gwartney and Robert Lawson, Economic Freedom of the World: 2002 Annual Report. Vancouver: Fraser Institute.
Man, Economy and State
  • Murray Rothbard
Rothbard, Murray. 1962 [2001]. Man, Economy and State. Auburn, AL: The Ludwig von Mises Institute.