A fuzzy approach to economic freedom performance

Abstract

This study aims to determine the most important component of economic freedom and to rank the performance of countries using multiple criteria decision-making tools within the context of fuzzy set theory. To do so, we utilize a combination of fuzzy entropy weighting and fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) methods to assess the economic freedom performance of 122 countries for the period 2000-2020. The findings suggest that the stability and reliability of a country's monetary system is the most crucial attribute for economic freedom performance. This implies that a stable and reliable monetary system is considered a fundamental aspect of economic freedom. Based on the TOPSIS analysis, the top 10 best-performing countries/regions in terms of economic freedom are Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Denmark, and Ireland. On the other hand, Venezuela, Myanmar, Congo Republic, Algeria, Syrian Arab Republic, Congo Democratic Republic, Zimbabwe, Central African Republic, Chad, and Iran are the worst-performing countries.