Europe: Economic Freedom Rating

Footnote

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Ireland	82.35
Switzerland	79.72
UK	79.55
Denmark	79.23
Estonia	77.78
Netherlands	76.82
Iceland	76.51
Luxembourg	75.20
Finland	74.79
Belgium	71.48
Cyprus	71.31
Germany	71.16
Lithuania	70.80
Sweden	70.42
Austria	69.98
Spain	69.71
Norway	68.99
Slovak Rep.	68.74
Czech Rep.	68.52
Latvia	68.33
Hungary	67.25
Malta	66.03
France	65.35
Portugal	64.30
Albania	63.33
Bulgaria	62.92
Italy	62.46
Romania	61.53
Macedonia	61.13
Turkey	60.76
Slovenia	60.58
Greece	60.07
Poland	59.49
Moldova	58.38
Croatia	54.58
Bosnia & H.	53.72
Ukraine	51.07
Russia	49.93
Belarus	44.66

Europe: Economic freedom rating

Scores are from 0 to 100, higher scores are more desirable i.e. more conducive to economic growth. The lower the score, the greater the level of government interference in the economy and the less economic freedom a country enjoys.

• Free— 80 - 100;
• Mostly Free— 70 - 79.9;
• Moderately Free— 60 - 69.9;
• Mostly Unfree— 50 to 59.9; and
• Repressed— 0 - 49.9.

Source: The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal

European statistics. European house price and other economic statistics vary in quality. It is often a surprise to non-Europeans to discover that swathes of this rich, highly developed continent are not covered by good housing statistics.

Northern European countries have generally good house price time-series. In particular, all the Scandinavian countries generate excellent house price statistics. In the Baltics the situation is improving rapidly. Latvia generates an official annual house price time-series, and the realtor Latio publishes a monthly index. Lithuania has no official house price or rents time-series, but the firm Inreal publishes annual prices and rents for Vilnius for a few years. Estonia has high-quality housing statistics, generated by the Statistical Office of Estonia (SOE). Data on house prices, house sales and construction activities, as well as general economics statistics are all available from the SOE.

Central Europe is mixed. German house price statistics are weak. France has very good statistics, the Netherlands has good data, Belgium and Austria have acceptable data. Spain has made giant strides, Portugal is weaker.

Southern Europe tends to have weak statistical data. There is a particular lack of housing statistics in Italy, Greece, and Turkey (though Italy has some private, for-sale, data generators).

Statistics in Eastern Europe are weak. Efforts are being made to change this, for instance Bulgaria began publishing a house price time-series in 2006. Aside from this, the Czech Republic has an official index, and in Poland, REAS Konsulting produces a for-sale index.