Economic Freedom and the Millennium Challenge Account

 Thank you for the opportunity to speak at this year's conference on Economic Freedom of the World: 2004 Report. It is a pleasure to read this year's report. There is much to learn from its new findings. 

This year's report, of course, is the latest entry in a series that, for many years, has been at the forefront of research into the determinants of economic growth.  Starting way back in the mid-1980s, with conferences held by Milton Friedman and Michael Walker, this research set the foundations for systematic quantitative analysis of economic freedom.  Indeed, a whole host of quantitative indices that have followed in the tradition of the economic freedom index are now having direct impact on public policy, including the development policy of the United States.  I would like to explain this impact of this economic research on U.S. policy in practice in my remarks here today.

Economic Freedom and Economic Growth

Many economists have long argued that economic growth and poverty reduction require an economic policy that encourages economic freedom.  This report provides plenty of empirical evidence of that. 

For example, countries with the highest levels of economic freedom in 2002 had growth rates 1.5 times those of all the others on average in the last decade.  Those with the lowest levels of economic freedom actually had negative economic growth – a shocking statistic during a period in world history of relative calm and prosperity.

Rising Living Standards and Better Policies

Not only does greater economic freedom go hand in hand with economic growth, it benefits people in immediate and tangible ways.  Comparing the countries whose economic freedom places them in the top fifth with the countries in the bottom fifth:

-       incomes are nine times greater;
-      life expectancy is more than 22 years longer;
-     adult literacy is almost 17 percentage points higher;
-       infant mortality is nine times lower; and
-      people are 36 percent more likely to have access to treated water in countries with high economic freedom ratings.

This report also shows real progress in improving economic freedom:  There has been an overall increase in mean economic freedom scores over the last twenty years, with specific improvements around the world. For example, there are:

-         more stable monetary policies with lower inflation;
-         lower marginal tax rates;
-         fewer foreign exchange controls;
-         fewer capital market and interest rate controls; and
-         lower barriers to international trade.

Applying Research on Economic Freedom in Designing the Millennium Challenge Account

Having been both an economic researcher and an economic policy maker, I have long been fascinated with how research affects policy in practice. In this regard, I really appreciate the value of your work.  Indeed, in implementing President Bush's new development assistance program--the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)--we directly applied research on economic freedom. 

The Millennium Challenge Account operates on the principle that aid is more likely to promote economic growth and raise living standards in countries that are pursuing sound political, economic, and social policies.  We examined a lot of research related to economic growth in choosing a set of indicators that would help us identify those countries where the environment would be most conducive to the productive use of our development dollars. 

We knew from your work and similar work by others that economic freedom is highly correlated with economic growth.  We chose, therefore, a set of six quantitative indicators of economic freedom to try to identify those countries with a better pro-growth environment: country credit rating; inflation; fiscal policy; trade policy; regulatory quality; and the number of days to start a business. 

This year, 16 countries were chosen for the MCA. The choice was based on an objective and transparent assessment of their policy performance on indicators covering a broad range of policies that are key to increasing economic growth. Given the similarity between the Economic Freedom of the World methodology and the methodology we use to assess economic freedom for the Millennium Challenge Account, it is instructive to take a look at how those 16 countries performed in your analysis.   

The average economic freedom score for this year's MCA eligible countries is 6.0.  The average economic freedom score for the countries that didn't make the MCA eligibility cut off is only 5.4.  So there is clearly a correlation between the MCA choices and the economic freedom index.  To be sure, one might expect this difference to be wider.  But, it is important to remember that economic freedom is one of three broad areas in the MCA selection process.  The other two areas are "ruling justly" and "investing in people".

Nine of the countries that this year's Economic Freedom of the World Report covers were selected for the MCA.  On average, this group passed (was above the median on) 67 percent of the MCA economic freedom indicators, 93 percent of the ruling justly indicators, and 69 percent of the investing in people indicators.

Among the countries this report covers that were not selected for the MCA, the picture is quite different.  This set of countries only passed 49 percent of the economic freedom indicators, only 32 percent of the ruling justly indicators, and only 33 percent of the indicators of investing in people.

This year's report also shows the link between economic freedom and good governance.  There is an inverse relationship between economic growth and corruption, and this report demonstrates a clear inverse relationship between the level of economic freedom and the level of corruption.

Countries in the top 20 percent in terms of economic freedom scored nearly eight out of ten on average in the Transparency International corruption perception index, where ten is the best score a country can receive.  Those in the bottom 20 percent scored only 2.5 out of ten.

Economic Freedom, Investment and the MCA

The results in this report also highlight another cornerstone of the MCA: namely that economic freedom attracts growth-promoting investment and – more importantly – uses investment resources more efficiently. 

Private investment as a share of GDP in the economically freest 20 percent of countries is nearly double that share in the least free group: 18 percent versus 10 percent.  In other words, an environment characterized by low taxes, secure property rights, and sound money proves meaningful for attracting private investment capital. 

In addition, this study shows that a one percent increase in investment to GDP boosts growth of per capita GDP by 0.33 percent in the freest 20 percent of countries, 0.27 percent in a mid-clustering of countries, and by only 0.19 percent in the least free group.

It is for this reason exactly that the MCA was designed the way it was.  We wanted to improve the targeting of our development resources to those countries where we have greater confidence that the funds will be used wisely.  Your report shows us that by using economic freedom as a criteria for selection, we will likely get a group of countries where funds will have the greatest chance of "crowding in" other sources of development finance, particularly resources from the private sector that are unhampered by government inefficiencies and controls. 

For the first year of the MCA, only countries with a per capita income below $1,435 were eligible for consideration.  This is a group of very poor countries indeed.  Your research shows that countries with low levels of income in particular are able to grow rapidly and move up the income ladder when their policies are supportive of economic freedom.  Exhibit 2.8 of the Report shows growth and investment in countries with low levels of income in 1980 and high levels of economic freedom from 1980 to 2000.  It shows that countries were able to double and even triple their per capita income with high levels of economic freedom.  It is this rate of improvement that we hope to encourage through the Millennium Challenge Account.

Conclusion

I want to conclude by thanking you again for this study.  As I hope I have shown here that without research work of this kind, there wouldn't be a Millennium Challenge Account.  With ever-expanding economic freedom, the 21^st century can be the first in which mass prosperity extends to all the corners of the world.

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