Recommended Reading

Events

All Content

Report

Jun 25, 2024

The path to prosperity: The 2024 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

By Ignacio Campomanes, Nina Dannaoui, Joseph Lemoine, Dan Negrea

In this “year of election,” freedom continues to decline globally. Political rights, judicial independence, and checks and balances are eroding. Prosperity growth has slowed, particularly in developing countries. The data underscores a strong link between freedom and prosperity, highlighting the need for data-driven policy reforms.

Democratic Transitions Freedom and Prosperity

Report

Mar 15, 2024

Attracting foreign direct investments

By Jérémie Bertrand, Joseph Lemoine, Dan Negrea, and Caroline Perrin

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a pivotal objective for countries seeking to bolster their economic development and global competitiveness. By delving into the relationship between freedom and FDI using the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes and examining institutional mechanisms to influence investment, we shed light on the dynamics that determine a country’s attractiveness to foreign investors.

Economy & Business Freedom and Prosperity

Freedom and Prosperity Around the World

Feb 26, 2024

Regaining trust in government

By Simeon Djankov, Joseph Lemoine, Dan Negrea

Crises like COVID-19 prompt increased government control, challenging liberal values. Declining trust in governments clashes with security needs, urging policies to balance freedom and prosperity. Energy security challenges hinder net-zero goals, posing economic challenges globally, alongside privacy dilemmas amid surveillance tech in China, Russia, and the Middle East.

Civil Society Freedom and Prosperity

Dan Negrea is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom & Prosperity Center. He founded the center in 2022 and was its first senior director.

He was the State Department’s special representative for commercial and business affairs between 2019 and 2021. In that capacity, he pioneered and led the Deal Team Initiative, a coordination mechanism between US government agencies. The initiative promotes business relations between US and foreign companies around the world.

He was a member of the US Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff between 2018 and 2019 where he was responsible for the economic portfolio. He coordinated the Global Entrepreneurship Summit held in The Hague in 2019 that was attended by two thousand participants from government, business, academia, and international organizations.

For three decades before that, he held leadership positions at Wall Street firms. He raised over fifteen billion dollars in financings in the United States and abroad, mostly for middle-market companies.

He defected from Communist Romania where he had been an official in the Ministry of Finance and was involved in negotiating government loans with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

He holds an MBA from Cornell University and an MA from the School of International Economic Relations in Bucharest, Romania. He has published extensively on foreign affairs.