According to The Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal annual Index of Economic Freedom, economic freedom is "the absence of government constraint or coercion on the production, distribution, or consumption of goods and services beyond the extent necessary for citizens to protect and maintain liberty itself."3

The Index measures the level of economic freedom in 161 countries around the world. To measure economic freedom, it focuses the study on 10 different factors:

• Trade policy,
• Fiscal burden of government,
• Government intervention in the economy,
• Monetary policy,
• Banking and finance,
• Capital flows and foreign investment,
• Wages and prices,
• Property rights,
• Regulation, and
• Informal market.

The Index provides a framework for understanding how open countries are to competition; the degree of state intervention in the economy, whether through taxation, spending or overregulation; and the strength and independence of a country's judiciary to enforce rules and protect private property. The 10 factors of the Index allow anyone to see how much or little economic freedom a country has.