The Economics of Freedom. Theory, Measure and Policy Implications

What is freedom? Can we measure it? Does it affect policy? This book develops an original measure of freedom called 'Autonomy Freedom', consistent with J. S. Mill's view of autonomy, and applies it to issues in policy and political design. The work pursues three aims. First, it extends classical liberalism beyond exclusive reliance on negative freedom so as to take autonomous behavior explicitly into account. Second, it grounds on firm conceptual foundations a new standard in the measurement of freedom that can be fruitfully coupled with existing gauges. Third, it shows empirically that individual preferences for redistribution and cross-country differences in welfare spending in Organisati…

The democratization process: An empirical appraisal of the role of political protest

Abstract This paper analyses the role of peaceful and violent protest in the democratization process. We interpret the democratization process as a sequence of phases so as to allow citizens' and elites' preferences for democracy to vary according to the particular phase that a country is experiencing. By doing so we jointly model the probability of protest and of moving through different phases of democracy taking into account time-constant and time-varying unobserved heterogeneity. In particular, we develop a multivariate finite mixture model that introduces a latent variable to capture unobservable factors. On a sample of 171 countries from 1971 to 2010, we provide evidence that protest …

Un’analisi formale dell’evoluzione culturale

L'articolo passa in rassegna il punto di vista di Hayek sull'evoluzione culturale. L'articolo dimostra che la teoria sviluppata da Hayek è largamente incompleta e non consente di legare le sue idee sull'evoluzione culturale al concetto di ordine spontaneo.

Il vantaggio delle libertà. Come costruire la società aperta in Italia

La crisi che l’Italia attraversa ha radici nell’ingombrante estensione dello stato e conseguenze sulla dimensione economica, politica e morale della vita sociale del paese. Per rimettere l’Italia in un sentiero virtuoso in cui la prosperità, materiale e immateriale, torni a crescere occorre ripartire dalla libertà. Non solo la libertà da uno stato invadente, come prescrive il liberalismo classico. Occorre un’assunzione morale di responsabilità da parte di tutti gli italiani attraverso l’affermazione della propria autonomia personale. Il libro descrive e misura empiricamente la libertà come autonomia e ne illustra gli effetti sulla vita economica, politica ed etica del paese. Emerge un perco…

Measuring freedom of choice: An alternative view of a recent literature

A recent literature has emerged in social choice theory which attributes intrinsic importance to freedom in the evaluation of states of affairs. The literature’s philosophical basis lies in Berlin’s notion of positive liberty. Accordingly, axiomatic measures of availability of choices are developed and the information they convey used for ranking states on the basis of the extent of liberty they offer to individuals. This paper argues that the literature’s contributions have taken Berlin’s analytical framework for granted exceedingly narrowing the philosophical terms of the debate. It is shown that, once freedom is analyzed from the perspective of an alternative structure, the triadic synta…

Freedom and the Pursuit of Happiness

This book is about the relationship between different concepts of freedom and happiness. The book's authors distinguish three concepts for which an empirical measure exists: opportunity to choose (negative freedom), capability to choose (positive freedom), and autonomy to choose (autonomy freedom). They also provide a comprehensive account of the relationship between freedom and well-being by comparing channels through which freedoms affect quality of life. The book also explores whether the different conceptions of freedom complement or replace each other in the determination of the level of well-being. In so doing, the authors make freedoms a tool for policy making and are able t…

How consistent are perceptions of inequality?

Abstract Despite recent empirical evidence on the importance of perceived inequality, its analysis is still underexplored. In this paper we study whether unobserved perceptions of inequality are reflected in observed individual opinions in a consistent fashion. Inconsistency is relevant to ealuate the level of agreement that individuals share with respect to different domains of inequality. Using the wave from the 2009 International Social Survey Program in the US, we show that inequality is a complicated concept prone to inconsistencies and propose a testing procedure to an empirical appraisal. We find that inconsistencies exist though they may not extend to all the domains of inequality. …

Freedom and Redistribution

In this paper we study the determinants of peopleís attitudes toward income inequality and their economic consequences. We argue that an individualís atti- tudes toward inequality depend upon the extent of freedom of choice and control over life outcomes he enjoys. We construct a two-stage empirical model where people Örst choose the level of income transfers and then their optimal level of ef- fort. We Önd that the higher the extent of an individualís free choice and control over life outcomes, the greater the probability that he supports larger income di§erences as incentives for individual e§ort. We also show that this relationship determines important consequences for the individualís w…

Autonomy Freedom and Preferences for Redistribution

In this paper we study the determinants of people's attitudes toward income inequality and their consequences for redistributive policies. In the light of a recent literature in social choice theory, we argue that an individual's attitudes toward inequality depend upon the extent of autonomy freedom he/she enjoys. We use individual level data to validate our theory and show that the higher the extent of an individual's autonomy freedom, the greater the probability that he/she supports larger income differences as incentives for individual effort. Conversely, the lower the extent of autonomy freedom, the more likely he/she supports the view that incomes should be made more equal. These findi…

Economic Freedom and its Measurement

Interest in the measurement of economic freedom originates from two separate lines of inquiry. The first, firmly embedded in the tradition of normative economics, focuses on freedom measurement for enlarging the narrow evaluative bases of welfare economics. The second, rooted in the libertarian tradition, tries to construct objective empirical indices of the extent of economic freedom enjoyed by countries on a world-wide basis. Despite their different origins, methodology and aims, both traditions share a common denominator that informs their theoretical underpinnings and the measures that they construct, viz., individual choice. More precisely, economic freedom measures constructed within …

Economic Freedom and the Pursuit of Happiness

L'eredità politica di Margaret Thatcher e la costruzione della società aperta

The paper offers a prospective interpretation of Margaret Thatcher’s political legacy and offers some observations about the chances for a reproduction of her pro-freedom policies in the current historical circumstances. In so doing, the paper discusses the political relevance of classical liberalism and suggests that, if we want to increase individual freedoms and affirm the open society, we must change the “book of prescriptions” currently used by classical liberals.

Measuring autonomy freedom

In the measurement of autonomy freedom, the admissible potential preference relations are elicited by means of the concept of ‘reasonableness’. In this paper we argue for an alternative criterion based on information about the decision maker’s ‘awareness’ of his available opportunities. We argue that such an inter- pretation of autonomy fares better than that based on reasonableness. We then introduce some axioms that capture this intuition and study their logical impli- cations. In the process, a new measure of autonomy freedom is characterized, which generalizes some of the measures so far constructed in the literature.

Individual control in decision-making and attitudes towards inequality: The case of Italy

Power is commonly defined as the control exercised by one or more persons over the choices, behaviours and attitudes of another or others. In this paper we focus on a different form of control, i.e., the control that a person exercises on her own choices, behaviours and attitudes. We conceptualize this different form of control by using the Millian idea of autonomy freedom. We argue that the power required for an individual to be in control of her own actions is exercised through her level of autonomy freedom. Autonomy freedom is, therefore, instrumental for an individual to have self-control over her own life. We claim that the extent of autonomy freedom significantly affects an individual…

Diversità, autonomia, politiche pubbliche

More Choice for Better Choosers: Political Freedom, Autonomy, and Happiness

A substantial literature finds that freedom in the sense of an expanded opportunity set is positively related to happiness. A contrasting literature, however, finds that an excess of choice can have socially undesirable outcomes. We test the effect of two types of freedom—autonomy and political—on happiness using five waves of World Values Survey data (1981–2008). We find evidence supporting the claim that equipping people with the tools to direct the course of their lives (i.e. increasing autonomy freedom) incentivizes the desire to investigate alternatives (e.g. political parties) before making a decision. The effect of freedoms on happiness is diminished in contexts where individuals hav…

An Empirical Analysis of the Determinants of Perceived Inequality

Perception of inequality is important for the analysis of individuals' motivations and decisions and for policy assessment. Despite the broad range of analytic gains that it grants, our knowledge about measurement and determinants of perception of inequality is still limited, since it is intrinsically unobservable, multidimensional, and essentially contested. Using a novel econometric approach, we study how observable individual characteristics affect the joint distribution of a set of indicators of perceived inequality in specific domains. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme, we shed light on the associations among these indicators and how they are affected by covaria…

Theoretical foundations of empirical measures of freedom: a research challenge to liberal economists

In this essay we ground the theoretical foundations of an empirical measure of the degree of freedom perceived by individuals on the Millian view of affirmation and development of individuality. We then discuss the implications of such a measure for policy and institutional design.

Discretionary time: A new measure of freedom, Robert Goodin, James Mahmud Rice, Antti Parpo, and Lina Eriksson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 484 pages.

Coercion

L''analisi della coazione si rivolge a quei vincoli che viziano la volontà di un agente in modo tale che il suo consenso e/o il suo accordo non può essere considerato volontario. In questo quadro generale, gli aspetti della coazione emergono in contesti diversi: dai problemi filosofici che determinano le condizioni necessarie e sufficienti per la mancanza di volontarietà, all''analisi economica delle asimmetrie nel potere di negoziazione, fino ai contesti che riguardano le relazioni internazionali.