Governments around the world restricted people’s economic freedoms at the onset of the COVID-19 panic in 2020. Two new studies finally quantify the extent of these restrictions. Unfortunately, the decreases in economic freedom were massive and are likely to harm economic development for years to come.
The Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report has measured the level of economic freedom in more than 150 countries, going back to 1970 in many cases. The recent 2022 release, which measures 2020 economic freedom, shows the biggest drop in the history of the report. Global economic freedom fell 2.3 percent from 2019. This decline is more than twice as large as the next biggest drop, which occurred during the 2007-08 financial crisis.
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