At the beginning of the year, the Project Lodz Foundation has been honoured to become an organizer of the Poland's first official presentation of a world-wide known "Index of Economic Freedom", prepared by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal.
The presentation of the 2009 Index of Economic Freedom took place on February 19 in Warsaw School of Economics. It was co-organized by the International Leaders Summit's Economic Roundtable in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, the Adriatic Institute for Public Policy and the Warsaw School of Economics. Numerous noble home and foreign guests were present: Mr. Terry Miller (The Heritage Foundation, editor-in-chief of the 2009 Index), Mr. Joel Anand Samy and Ms. Natasha Srdoc (The Adriatic Institute of Public Policy), Mr. Marcin Nowacki (president of the Project Lodz Foundation) and Mr. Robert Gwiazdowski, Ph. D., president of the Adam Smith Research Center.
The Index of Economic Freedom (IEF) is one of world's most famous indicators of economic freedom. It is being published since 1995 and defines the economic freedom as "lack of governmental pressure or limitations within production, distribution and consumption of goods and services except for the necessary minimum".
The Index build upon 50 various sub-indicators divided into 10 categories such as: business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government size, monetary freedom, investement freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption, labor freedom. Every state is attributed with points in each category and classified according to the results. States are divided as free, rather free, rather not free and not free. The 2009 edition concerns 179 nations; Poland has been placed on 82nd position. The aim of the Index is to prove links between economic freedom and wealth generated by countries.
