2008世界经济自由度指数.pdf

57 Chapter 5 Economic Freedom in Five Regions James M. Roberts and Anthony B. Kim The average global economic freedom score is 60.3, according to our 2008 Index assessment. In the years since the 1995 Index, global economic freedom has improved by 2.6 percentage points and has held steady despite slow progress in the past few years. The varying degrees of commitment to economic freedom over the past decade in the five major regions of the world have resulted in mixed trends within individual regions’ pursuit of greater economic freedom. This chapter provides snapshots of econom- ic freedom indicators at the aggregated regional level for each of the five geographic regions. 2008 Economic Freedom and Performance by Region Average Economic Freedom Score Population GDP per Capita (PPP)* GDP 5-Year Growth Rate* Unemploy- ment Rate* Infl ation Rate* Simple Weighted* Asia–Pacifi c 58.7 54.4 3,616,976,439 $6,361 7.6 6.3 5.0 Europe 66.8 63.1 799,629,184 $20,282 3.9 7.4 5.0 Americas 61.6 67.0 879,292,883 $20,568 3.0 6.9 4.5 Middle East/N. Africa 58.7 54.4 311,473,781 $7,508 4.6 13.4 7.7 Sub-Saharan Africa 54.5 55.5 633,132,970 $2,137 5.0 13.2 29.0 World 60.3 57.4 6,240,505,257 $9,775 6.1 7.5 7.5 * Weighted by population. Sources: World Bank, World Development Indicators Online; Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2005; International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database, April 2006; and Kim R. Holmes, Edwin J. Feulner, and Mary Anastasia O’Grady, 2008 Index of Economic Freedom (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation and Dow Jones Company, Inc., 2008), at /index. Table 1 58 2008 Index of Economic Freedom ASIA–PACIFIC The Asia–Pacific region spans the world’s largest surface area, stretching from Japan and New Zealand in the East to Azerbaijan in the West. With 3.6 billion inhabitants, this region contains over half of the world’s population: one-third in China and nearly another third in India. Despite having one of the