Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom: Ireland in third place
Jan 4th, 2006
Finfacts Ireland
By Finfacts Team

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Among the 45 countries in North America and Europe, 33 improved, including Armenia, Georgia and Turkey, and 10 declined, according to the Index editors, Marc Miles, Kim Holmes and Mary Anastasia O’Grady.
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Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

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World: Economic Freedom Advancing, Survey Finds
4 January 2005
RFE/RL
By Golnaz Esfandiari

Prague – The only region to see a net decline in economic freedom in 2005 was North Africa and the Middle East, the authors of the survey concluded.
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Ninety-nine countries saw their overall scores improve in 2005. By contrast, 51 economies became less free, particularly those of Iran and Italy.

Overall, the survey classified 20 countries as "free." For the twelfth successive year, Hong Kong and Singapore were judged the world's freest economies. Behind them came Ireland, Estonia, Luxembourg, Iceland, Britain, Estonia and Denmark and -- jointly in ninth place -- Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, which had slipped out of the leading group in 2004.

Fifty-two countries are rated as "mostly free," including Armenia and Georgia, whose economies were among the 10 most "improved" during the year.
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Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.