Authors: Nathan Ashby, Amela Karabegovic, Fred McMahon

The index published in Economic Freedom of North America rates economic freedom on a 10-point scale at two levels, the subnational and the all-government. At the all-government level, the index captures the impact of restrictions on economic freedom by all levels of government (federal, state/provincial, and municipal/local). At the subnational level, it captures the impact of restrictions by state or provincial and local governments.

“Economic liberalisation is the process of freeing up market in order to allow people to work and support themselves as they see fit.”

Responding to the “New Economic Model” report recently released by the Malaysian government, the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) with the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF) produces a document, entitled “Liberalising Malaysian Economy?”

This document is intended for the general public and policy makers. The authors – Kwek Kon Yao, Afif Absullah and Wan Saiful Wan Jan – hope to contribute to the ongoing debate about the report and the future shape of the country’s economy, and to supply further arguments why economic liberalisation is the best way forward for Malaysia. The document focuses particularly on the four critical issues of the report, namely economic liberalisation, privatisation, foreign workers and minimum wage.

By Barun S. Mitra

New Delhi is trying to regulate innovation out of the educational system.

Indian students waited eagerly last week for the results of entrance exams to the most sought-after engineering schools, among them the famed Indian Institutes of Technology. More than 450,000 students competed for some 9,500 seats in what is perhaps the most competitive exam in the world. This year's success stories included a home-schooled 14-year-boy in Delhi and poor students from rural areas in Bihar state. They are even more remarkable because they triumphed over the state's strangulating embrace of the education sector.

A classic masterpiece written by a famous French economist, Frédéric Bastiat who lived in the 19th century, is now published in the Bahasa Indonesia version. The book entitled “Hukum” was translated from an English version made by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in 1998 and was first published in France in 1850 with the original title La Loi. Although Bastiat’s words were written hundreds of years ago, they are still relevant with our condition nowadays.

Of all the famous economists defending the idea of free trade, Frédéric Bastiat is one of them whose ideas and views are still made as reference today because he was very persistent in defending the free trade idea throughout his life. His thoughts and opinions which were written down in his essays gave us a different logic on how to look at different ideas of economy and how it relates to our everyday lives.