New evidence on the link between ethnic fractionalization and economic freedom

Abstract

Among the determinants of economic freedom, the presence of different ethnic groups within a country has sometimes been explored by the empirical literature, without conclusive evidence on the sign of the relation, its drivers, and the conditions under which it holds. This paper offers new evidence by empirically modelling how ethnic fragmentation is related to economic freedom, as measured by the Economic Freedom Index and by each of its numerous areas, components and sub-components. The results provide insights on the components driving the effect and, interestingly, detect notable differences between developed and developing countries.

Free to die: Economic freedoms and influenza mortality

“…This result may be due to the composite nature of the overall index: indeed, as other research has shown (e.g. Marson et al, 2021;Saccone and Migheli, 2022), the different components of the index may have effects with opposite signs on a given phenomenon, cancelling out each other when the overall index is used. Instead, when its five components are considered (model b and other models where subcomponents are also alternatively included among regressors as introduced onwards), some significant coefficients are found.…”

Does economic freedom foster education in Sub‐Saharan Africa?

“…It stands as one of the most widely used indices of economic freedom worldwide. For instance, it has been extensively utilized by researchers such as Stroup (2007), Farhadi et al (2015), Apergis and Cooray (2015), Angulo‐Guerrero et al (2017), Bennett et al (2017), Feldmann (2017, 2021), de Soysa and Vadlamannati (2021), Marson et al (2021), Graafland and de Jong (2022), and Atangana Ondoa and Mveng (2023). In contrast, according to Miller and Kim (2016), the Index of Economic Freedom published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal is partly based on subjective assessments by in‐house experts.…”