Freedom, entitlement, and the path to development
Twenty years after the revolutions of Central and Eastern Europe, the Arab Spring is again raising some fundamental questions about the place of freedom and entitlement in development. Depending on the balance between free choices and more coerced decisions , individual opportunities to learn, own, work, save, invest, trade, protect, and so forth could vary greatly across countries and over time. Reviewing the economic performance of more than 100 countries over the past 30 years, new empirical evidence tends to support the idea that economic freedom and civil and political liberties are the root causes of why certain countries achieve and sustain better economic outcomes. In contrast, entitlement rights do not seem to have any significant effects on long-term per capita income, except for a possible negative effect. These results tend to support earlier findings that, beyond core functions of government responsibility (including the protection of liberty itself), the expansion of the state to provide for various entitlements (including so-called economic, social, and cultural rights) may not make people richer in the long run; it may even make them poorer.
Jean-Pierre Chauffour is lead
economist in the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa Region, where
he works on regionalism, competitiveness, and economic integration
issues. Prior to joining the World Bank in 2007, he spent 15 years at
the IMF, where he held various positions, including mission chief in the
African Department and representative to the WTO and United Nations in
Geneva. Mr. Chauffour has extensive economic policy experience and has
worked in many areas of the developing world, most extensively in the
Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe. He holds a master in economics
and a master in money, banking, and finance from the Panthéon-Sorbonne
University in Paris. He is the author of “The Power of Freedom: Uniting
Human Rights and Development” (Cato Institute, 2009) and has recently
co-edited two books: "Preferential Trade Agreement Policies for
Development: a Handbook" (World Bank 2011) and "Trade Finance during the
Great Trade Collapse" (World Bank 2011).