Europe: Economic Freedom Rating

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

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.