Free to Develop?

Abstract

Academics have long debated whether relationship exists between freedom and development. Problems with these studies lead others to question the connection between these variables. In contributing to the scholarly debate, a new interactive variable is created that combines several measures of economic and political freedom, as suggested by Milton Friedman. The link between this new freedom variable and both economic and human development is examined across a series of cross-sections from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Results indicate that this new freedom measure is strongly related to both forms of development for the developed and developing world.