ECONOMIC FREEDOM AND MORAL VALUES

Abstract

Has increasing economic freedom made us lose touch with moral values? Does an increasingly free market erode the moral underpinnings of society? This paper seeks to address concerns with how moral values and economic freedom are related to each other. By using empirical data provided by the World Values Survey and the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, we will attempt to find if there is a connection between economic freedom and moral values. The goal of this project will be to see if there merely exists a connection between economic freedom and moral values, not specifically how they are correlated. Upon analyzing the data, it seems that there does not exist a clear connection between moral values and economic freedom. While the results are inconclusive there are a few strange things we can take away from the research: Certain values are positively and negatively correlated for different countries, similarities among these correlations are difficult to determine, and certain moral values have increased and decreased with changes in economic freedom.