Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand have been ranked the top three countries in the world in terms of economic freedom. That’s according to the Cato Institute’s 2014 annual report on the Economic Freedom of the World which was released on Friday.
The United States and the United Kingdom were tied for 12th in this year’s report. Here in Asia, Taiwan came in 18th, followed by Japan in 23rd and South Korea in 33rd place. China was ranked 115th.
The report was based on figures from 2012, which is the most recent year for which data is available. Global economic freedom fell slightly in this year’s report, and is still well below the top score of 6.92 (out of 10) in 2007.
The Cato Institute publishes the annual report along with the Frazer Institute in Canada and more than 70 other global think tanks. The report looks at 152 countries, evaluating a number of different areas, including: the size of government; legal structure and security of property rights; access to sound money; freedom to trade internationally; and regulation of credit, labor and business.