The 2011 Index of Economic Freedom - which European country has plummeted?

This index ranks 183 countries on measures such as trade freedom, investment freedom, business freedom, and property rights. Which European country suffered a huge fall in economic freedom over the last year?

The answer is Iceland, plummeting from 18th to 44th position on the index. The full list of rankings can be found on the Heritage Foundation’s website.
The index divides countries up into five categories, based on their scores (as per the colour coded bar below).

It would be an interesting classroom exercise to ask your students how many countries they think are in the “free” category. The answer is only six - Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Canada.

The website has a nice tool which allows you to graph up to 3 different countries to show their relative economic freedom over the last ten years and compared to the world average. I chose New Zealand, North Korea, and Iceland (shown below). Not surprisingly, North Korea is at the very bottom with a score of 1 / 100. They score 0 in eight of the ten categories but picked up a handful of points for property rights and freedom from corruption. Each individual countries breakdown of points can be found on the site here.

Another interesting concept to look at is the link between economic freedom and life expectancy. The graph below from the Carpe Diem blog indicates a positive correlation between the two. Whether there is causation is another matter for discussion!

A couple of other graphics from the Heritage Foundation website which may be useful are also below.