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Richard Florida

Richard Florida - Richard Florida is Senior Editor at The Atlantic and Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto. See his most recent writing at The Atlantic Cities. More

Florida is author of The Rise of the Creative Class, Who's Your City?, and The Great Reset. He is founder of the Creative Class Group.
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Free, Tolerant, and Happy

By Richard Florida

Apr 19 2010, 10:49 AM ET Comment

A week or so ago, Newsweek's Julia Baird pointed to my analysis of the connection between national happiness and tolerance. That reminded me and my MPI colleagues of the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index. The index, which covers 183 countries, is based on ratings for 10 specific factors: business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government size, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom. Hong Kong topped the list overall, followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Switzerland. Canada came in 7th, the highest among North American nations and slightly ahead of the United States which ranked 8th.

To what extent is economic freedom associated with tolerance and happiness? Are freer nations also more tolerant? Are their residents happier than those of other nations? To what extent is economic freedom also associated with other factors like affluence and material well

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