The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A think-tank executive yesterday voiced concern that Hurricane Dorian will cause a further expansion in government's size after The Bahamas fell seven spots in an economic freedom index.

Rick Lowe, of the Nassau Institute, also expressed concern about "the lack of trust" in government institutions, and warned that this could impede efforts to improve The Bahamas' standing in the Economic Freedom of the World Index.

The index, released by the Nassau Institute in conjunction with the authors, the Canada-based Fraser Institute, showed The Bahamas fell from 51st spot to 58th over the past two years that were assessed due largely to declines in its rating for the "size of government", legal system and property rights.

With The Bahamas ranked 38th as recently as 2010, its slippage in the Economic Freedom of the World Index appears to mirror its recent decline in the World Bank's "ease of doing business" rankings.

Asked about The Bahamas' prospects for reversing this trend, Mr Lowe replied: "It's easy enough to switch if they're willing to put their noses to the grind stone, but now with Dorian the excuse will be to create more government and that will have the opposite effect.

"I think we absolutely should be concerned with the decline.... Other countries have been doing what it takes to improve, and its been shown that with more economic freedom people are better off. Look at the countries ahead of us such as Singapore with proper institutions."

He added: "There's a level of trust, and I don't think our society has a level of trust. We don't trust each other, and don't trust the government. We also need the same level of trust in our institutions, and our institutions don't deserve that trust at the moment. We need those institutions to do the right thing in order for society to build trust."

The Bahamas ranked 58th out of 162 countries, with its overall ratings dropping from 7.36 to 7.25. Hong Kong and Singapore again top the index, continuing their streak as first and second, respectively. New Zealand, Switzerland, the US, Ireland, UK, Canada, Australia, and Mauritius round out the top ten.

The report was prepared by James Gwartney, of Florida State University; Robert A Lawson and Ryan Murphy of Southern Methodist University; and Joshua Hall, West Virginia University.

It is based on data from 2017 (the most recent year of available comparable data), and measures the economic freedom - levels of personal choice, ability to enter markets, security of privately owned property, rule of law - by analysing the policies and institutions of 162 countries and territories.

The ten lowest-rated countries are: Iraq, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Algeria, Sudan, Libya, and Venezuela. Some despotic countries such as North Korea and Cuba can't be ranked due to lack of data.