Liberating the literature: A project on women and economic freedom

Abstract

Since the first publication of the Fraser Institute's economic freedom index in 1996, hundreds of papers have been published using either the Economic Freedom of the World index or the Economic Freedom of North America index as an independent variable. These papers overwhelmingly find that economic freedom is associated with a variety of normatively good outcomes, with very few notable drawbacks. Most of these studies, however, examine how economic freedom impacts the average person in a population. Encouraged by Rosemarie Fike's examinations of economic freedom and gender disparity, scholars over the past few years have begun to examine whether economic freedom might have disproportionate impacts on women versus men. This special issue brings together several papers examining the various margins on which the institutions of economic freedom might differentially benefit or disadvantage women relative to men. The papers overwhelmingly support the idea that women benefit from market-friendly institutions and highlight numerous areas in which future research might be done.