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Jun 23, 2025

2025 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes: How political freedom drives growth

By Ignacio Campomanes, Nina Dannaoui-Johnson, Annie (Yu-Lin) Lee, Joseph Lemoine

As the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes show political freedom declining worldwide for the twelfth straight year, new data analysis shows its importance for lasting prosperity: Though authoritarians promise economic rewards, democratizing countries gain an 8.8 percent GDP per capita boost over twenty years than their autocratic peers. With democracy on the ropes, what else can the Indexes tell us?

China Civil Society

Freedom and Prosperity Around the World

Feb 28, 2025

Building balanced institutions for prosperity

By Ignacio Campomanes, Annie (Yu-Lin) Lee, Joseph Lemoine

This overview chapter explores the institutional evolution of each country and contextualizes these insights within the broader economic and political science literature on institutions and development. As global instability rose in 2024, longstanding governance challenges that had been intensifying over the past decade became increasingly evident.

Corruption Economy & Business

Report

Jun 25, 2024

The path to prosperity: The 2024 Freedom and Prosperity Indexes

By Ignacio Campomanes, Nina Dannaoui-Johnson, 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

Ignacio P. Campomanes is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and a resident fellow at the Navarra Center for International Development, a research center at the University of Navarra in Spain. Previously, he spent one year at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a post-doctoral fellow on long term fiscal policy. His research lies at the intersection of political economy, public economics, and development economics. In particular, his work focuses on the institutional determinants of economic development, and how these are mediated by features of the politico-economic environment such as inequality, social mobility, and foreign aid. His work has been supported by the Peterson Foundation, Acton Institute, and the Ramon Areces Foundation. He has taught classes of principles and intermediate macroeconomics at the University of Minnesota, and economic growth and business cycles at the University of Navarra.

Campomanes holds a BA in economics and a BA in law from Carlos III University in Spain, master’s degrees in economics from Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in economics from the University of Minnesota.