"Why does poverty persist?

This question has stumped the experts for decades. (...) The greater the number of roadblocks and the higher the bar, the less likely it is that a person’s efforts to achieve his or her goals will be successful, the less likely one is to receive sufficient rewards from giving up essentials today to attain increased education, the greater one’s feeling of helplessness will be, the less likely someone will be even to make the effort—and the more likely a country is to remain mired in poverty.

Such a pattern is precisely what has been observed by the Index of Economic Freedom over the past 11 years. Each year, we show that the freest countries (those with the smallest and fewest roadblocks) have the highest incomes and that income per person drops rapidly as economic freedom disappears. Last year, we showed that those countries that had removed the most roadblocks (had the largest improvement in their overall economic freedom scores) also had the highest growth rates.

So removing the roadblocks puts countries on The Road to Prosperity."


The Heritage Foundation: Index of Economic Freedom 2005

"Quantitative studies have shown that trade fosters peace both directly, by reducing the risk of military conflict, and indirectly, by promoting prosperity and democracy."

The Independent Institute: The Diffusion of Prosperity and Peace by Globalization