 Identifying the ‘deep roots’ of economic freedom with implications for policy and economic reformJames W. Saunoris, James E. Payne and Russell S. Sobel Journal of Policy Modeling, 2025, vol. 47, issue 1, 211-227 Abstract: Because of the importance of economic freedom for a country’s prosperity and growth, subsequent studies now try to uncover which factors explain the cross-country differences in economic freedom. Based upon Lawson, Murphy, and Powell’s (2020) recent literature review we provide the first empirical examination of the relative importance of all 18 of the key “deep root” factors they identify across the published literature. We employ a Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) approach that is ideally suited for model identification and provides a statistical means to rank the importance of these deep root factors. Our results suggest that (in order of importance) latitude, exitability as measured by a country’s shape and coastal access, genetic distance, religion, and French legal origins are the most important of the deep root determinants of economic freedom. Policy implications of our findings are also discussed. Keywords: Economic freedom; Bayesian model averaging; Deep root determinants; Institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:47:y:2025:i:1:p:211-227 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2024.09.002 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Policy Modeling is currently edited by A. M. Costa More articles in Journal of Policy Modeling from Elsevier |
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