South Africa ranks 90th in economic freedom rankings
To what extent do South Africa’s policies and institutions support economic freedom?
According to the 2020 Economic Freedom of the World report recently published by the Fraser Institute (which is based on 2018 data), South Africa climbed up from 101 in 2017 to 90 in 2018.
However, a lot has happened since 2018, and going up in the rankings doesn’t necessarily mean that there is much improvement.
The study bases economic freedom on personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to enter markets and compete, and security of the person and privately-owned property, and includes a measure to gauge the extent to which women have the same economic freedom as men.
It is based on common measurements, and would not include the full impact of a catastrophic happening such as state capture.
Hong Kong and Singapore occupy the two top positions of the first quartile (the most-free countries), and Zimbabwe falls within the lowest 10. Venezuela has the last spot. However, the report does mention that the interventions of the Chinese government in 2018 and 2019, and the resulting insecurity of property rights, may have a negative impact on Hong Kong’s score in the next study.
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