Economic Freedom, Inequality and Poverty : Re-examining the Role of Government

The basic objective of the paper is to focus on the role of economic freedom, and inequality in education and land assets as determinants of growth, inequality, poverty and malnutrition. The econometric results confirm that for the countries studied, the aggregate measure of economic freedom neither has a significant effect on the GDP growth rate nor on inequality, poverty and malnutrition. However, results indicate that a higher economic freedom, as measured by one of its sub-components i.e., a lower size of the government affects equality, poverty and malnutrition adversely. In light of this relationship, and taking note of the existence of the poverty-nutrition-trap, the paper questions the commonly held belief that government intervention is necessarily less productive. Emphasising that government investment in providing nutrition security is necessary, the paper argues that the role of the government, in an era of liberalisation and privatisation, needs to be redefined rather than reduced