Fraser Institute Reports Good News for Canada
Canada is a good place to do business. That is the news with today’s release of the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World: 2012 Annual Report.
The Executive Summary is an interesting read. As you might expect, one of the five broad areas used to construct the measurement is the legal system and property rights. Though we outranked the US in many categories, our index under legal system and property rights is considerably below the US, with that particular gap widening since the 2005 report. This chart in the National Post shows the comparison. The connection between the legal system and property rights and economic freedom:
Further evidence shows that both entrepreneurship and legal quality exert a positive impact on productivity. The main effects of improvements to economic freedom are mediated through entrepreneurship and are substantial.
Here in Alberta, we are quite content to be the ‘most economically free jurisdiction in North America’.
Of course there is also the argument that it is those economic freedoms such as less regulation or as some would say free enterprise or freer enterprise that have driven the world economies to the position they are currently experiencing. But this too shall pass.