This map of economic freedom in Africa comes from howmuch.net:
The data come from the Heritage Foundation – which publishes a yearly index of economic freedom. Basically, the index is an average of scores (between 0 and 100) awarded for the following qualitative and quantitative factors:
- Rule of Law
- Property rights
- Government integrity
- Judicial effectiveness
- Government Size
- Government spending
- Tax burden
- Fiscal health
- Regulatory Efficiency
- Business freedom
- Labour freedom
- Monetary freedom
- Open Markets
- Trade freedom
- Investment freedom
- Financial freedom
You can check out their methodology here.
Rolling Alpha posts opinions on finance, economics, and sometimes things that are only loosely related. Follow me on Twitter @RollingAlpha, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rollingalpha. Also, check out the RA podcast on iTunes: The Story of Money.
Comments
Mark February 7, 2018 at 11:58
I am surprised at how small RSA’s GDP per capita is relative to the rest of the continent. It also seems to me that population is the more thorny issue i.e the bigger your population the progressively more difficult it is to have a high GDP per capita. compare Mauritius and EG to RSA and Nigeria. or Angola to Nigeria for a more fair comparison.
So while the focus is always on growing the economy, perhaps the population size lever is more effective.
Replymark February 9, 2018 at 13:11
The other interesting trend is the largely free south and east compared to the unfree north and west
Reply