ECONOMIC FREEDOM, PROSPERITY, AND EQUALITY: A SURVEY

Abstract

Research Program for its support for this research, and Ian V squez for helpful comments. A longer version of this paper first appeared as a report to the Senate Joint Economic Committee (Hanke and Walters 1997). The best thing a society can do to increase its prosperity is to wise up. This means, in turn, that it is very important that economists, inside government and out, get things right. When we are wrong, we do a lot of harm. When we are right--and have the clarity needed to prevail against the special interests and the quacks--we make an extraordinary contribution to the amelioration of poverty and the progress of humanity. The sums lost because the poor countries obtain only a fraction of... their economic potentials are measured in the trillions of dollars.--Mancur Olson Economic growth is, quite literally, a matter of life and death. The relation between income growth and life expectancy is, of course, complex. Growth affects life expectancy