Empirical analysis of the impact of economic freedom on economic growth in the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Singapore

Abstract

A quality business environment is considered a key factor that affects the competitiveness and growth of the market economy. The article provides an evaluation of the development of the business environment in the Slovak Republic and its comparison with selected countries using the Index of Economic Freedom from the Heritage Foundation. The aim is to verify the influence of individual sub-indexes of the Index of Economic Freedom on the economic growth of the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Singapore, measured by the GDP per capita growth (%), through a panel analysis. By choosing these three countries over a period of 20 years, the article brings new knowledge that appropriately complements already conducted empirical studies in the researched area. As a result, two of the twelve sub-indexes of the economic freedom index, namely the labor freedom sub-index and the monetary freedom sub-index, demonstrated an impact on the economic growth of the surveyed countries. In addition to them, the dependent variable is also influenced by the control variables foreign direct investment and gross capital formation. However, economic freedom is a complex indicator, so importance should also be attributed to other sub-indexes of the Index of Economic Freedom as a manifestation of the synergy of all its basic elements in the creation of macroeconomic policy.