Beyond private ownership of the means of production, what is the most important, or essential, fact of capitalism? Friedrich A. Hayek thought it was the economy of knowledge with which the system operated, whereas for Joseph A. Schumpeter it was the process of creative destruction. To our...

The hypothesis that economic freedom and related variables are significant determinants of real per capita income and growth is critically evaluated. Economic freedom is found necessary for higher levels of per capita income and growth largely in terms of threshold effects as opposed to...

The idea that all types of economic freedom - including limited government - promote prosperity is challenged by the fact that some countries successfully combine a large public sector with high taxes and otherwise high levels of economic freedom. To explain the co-existence of economic freedom...

In this paper, a new approach to disclose the impact of politics on economic growth is presented: we use data derived from content analysis of party manifestos as measures of party preferences. In a panel of 23 OECD countries, we detect a positive impact of party support for various...

Several recent studies have found a negative relation between government size and economic growth in rich countries. Since countries with big government have experienced above average improvements in both the Economic freedom index and the KOF globalization index, we argue that existing studies...