On 27-Jun-06, at 5:24 PM, Ashish Gulhati wrote:
On 27-Jun-06, at 5:04 PM, sastry wrote:
Mahesh could well be right. a cursory check supports his statement
http://www.un.org/special-rep/ohrlls/ldc/list.htm
Which of those countries would you say provides conditions amenable
to capitalism?
To attempt to answer that question, I cross-related the list of LDCs
against
Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index of 2006 [1]. The results
are
below. The number against each country name is its rank on the
freedom index
(out of 161 countries, lower ranks mean less economic freedom). The
number in
square brackets is the "score", with broad categories for the score
as follows:
Free - Score 1 - 1.99
Mostly Free - Score 2 - 2.99
Mostly Unfree - Score 3 - 3.99
Repressed - Score 4 -5
Some things immediately jump out:
None of the countries on the LDC list have an economic freedom score of
"Free". Only 3 of the 34 countries rated by Heritage Foundation are
"Mostly
Free". The rest of the LDCs are all "Mostly Unfree" or "Repressed".
Conversely, none of the "Free" countries are LDCs.
22 of the countries on the LDC list (out of 36 rated by Heritage
Foundation)
are also in the bottom 50 of the economic freedom index. If some of the
unrated countries had been rated by Heritage Foundation, there would
likely
be quite a few more of these LDC countries in the bottom 50.
I am very puzzled by how North Korea and India have not made it onto the
UN's LDC list. Surely there are many more people starving in India
and N.
Korea than in Cambodia. I'm guessing that this list of LDCs is not
identical to
the list of the most impoverished nations, or those with the lowest
average
per capita income. (If someone finds that list, it'd be interesting
to do a
cross-relation of that with the Economic Freedom Index too - I'm sure
that
will cover most of the remaining bottom-50 un-free countries).
I think this data pretty much speaks for itself, and provides very
strong
statistical evidence that higher levels of capitalism (as
approximately indicated
by the economic freedom index) translate to better lives for people
and a higher
level of development.
#!
Here's the list of LDCs (as per the UN list) sorted by decreasing
economic freedom:
Cape Verde - 46 [2.69]
Uganda - 66 [2.95]
Cambodia - 68 [2.98]
Mauritania - 81 [3.08]
Senegal - 83 [3.10]
Mali - 88 [3.14]
United Republic of Tanzania - 94 [3.20]
Djibouti - 94 [3.20]
Lesotho - 99 [3.24]
Burkina Faso - 102 [3.28]
Chad - 105 [3.29]
Zambia - 111 [3.34]
Mozambique - 113 [3.35]
Niger - 115 [3.38]
Benin - 117 [3.40]
Central African Republic - 118 [3.41]
Gambia - 123 [3.51]
Nepal - 125 [3.53]
Rwanda - 125 [3.43]
Guinea - 127 [3.55]
Guinea-Bissau - 131 [3.65]
Burundi - 132 [3.69]
Ethiopia - 133 [3.70]
Togo - 134 [3.71]
Sierra Leone - 137 [3.76]
Equatorial Guinea - 136 [3.74]
Angola - 139 [3.84]
Yemen - 139 [3.84]
Bangladesh - 141 [3.88]
Democratic Republic of the Congo 143 [3.90]
Haiti - 147 [4.03]
Lao People's Democratic Republic - 149 [4.08]
Myanmar - 155 [4.46]
Not Rated
---------
Afghanistan
Bhutan
Comoros
Eritrea
Kiribati
Liberia
Malawi
Maldives
Samoa
Sao Tome and Principe
Solomon Islands
Somalia
Sudan
Timor-Leste
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
--
1. http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm?
sortby=country
