---
title: "Economic freedom indices: research papers using this data"
description: "From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 166 archived papers mentioned Economic freedom indices in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Jun 2026 (11)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/economic-freedom-indices
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/economic-freedom-indices.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 166 archived papers mentioned Economic freedom indices in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Jun 2026 (11). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Economic freedom indices

[Browse dataset profiles](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/directory/page/2.md)

Country indices of governance, democracy, corruption, economic freedom, political risk and capital openness.

- data category: Governance and institutional indicators
- 0 papers in the last 7 days
- Names searched for: Index of Economic Freedom, Economic Freedom of the World, Heritage Foundation, Fraser Institute

Most-used data: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/datasets.md · All Governance and institutional indicators datasets: https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/governance-and-institutional-indicators.md



## Key findings

- From Nov 2023 to Oct 2026, 166 archived papers mentioned Economic freedom indices in their title, abstract or keywords (the search of earlier months' full texts is still under way), most of them in Jun 2026 (11).
- Economic freedom indices was mentioned in 4 papers in the last 30 days (2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05), ranking #79 of the 246 datasets mentioned.
- By journal category: Economics (3) and Marketing (1).
- Most of them appeared in Public Choice (1), Telecommunications Policy (1) and International Economics and Economic Policy (1).
- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), Economic freedom indices was mentioned in 189 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (91), management (51) and finance (26).
- 41 of them were published in 2025, against 1 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (5), University of Groningen (5) and University of Leeds (5).
- The journals publishing most of them were Public Choice (8), Small Business Economics (8) and Journal of International Management (6).
- The most-cited of them is “Capital is not enough: opportunity entrepreneurship and formal institutions” (Small Business Economics, 2018), with 175 citations.
- Papers use Economic freedom indices most often with World Development Indicators (World Bank) (47), Worldwide Governance Indicators (36) and Penn World Table (15); it has 38 partners in the code and data network, in the group around World Development…, Eurostat, International Energy….

## Mentions over 36 months

*Papers mentioning it by publication month, Nov 2023 to Oct 2026 (titles, abstracts and keywords; the full texts of earlier months are still being searched)*

| Trend | Nov 23–Oct 24 | Nov 24–Oct 25 | Nov 25–Oct 26 | 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
|  | 57 | 47 | 62 | 166 |

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 1 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 25 | 24 | 24 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 14 | 9 | 20 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 5 | 8 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 1 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 19 | 60 | 41 | 58 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Public Choice](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/public-choice.md) | 8 |
| 2 | [Small Business Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/small-business-economics.md) | 8 |
| 3 | [Journal of International Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-management.md) | 6 |
| 4 | [Journal of International Business Studies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-business-studies.md) | 5 |
| 5 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 4 |
| 6 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 4 |
| 7 | [European Journal of Political Economy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/european-journal-of-political-economy.md) | 4 |
| 8 | [Financial Innovation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/financial-innovation.md) | 4 |
| 9 | [Journal of Comparative Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-comparative-economics.md) | 3 |
| 10 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 3 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona | 5 |
| 2 | [University of Groningen](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-groningen.md) | 5 |
| 3 | [University of Leeds](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-leeds.md) | 5 |
| 4 | [University of Reading](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-reading.md) | 5 |
| 5 | [University of Turin](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-turin.md) | 5 |
| 6 | [Copenhagen Business School](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/copenhagen-business-school.md) | 4 |
| 7 | Northeastern University | 4 |
| 8 | Prague University of Economics and Business | 4 |
| 9 | Texas Tech University | 4 |
| 10 | Universidad Complutense de Madrid | 4 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 49 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 47 |
| 3 | Spain | 22 |
| 4 | Germany | 19 |
| 5 | Italy | 16 |
| 6 | Denmark | 12 |
| 7 | Czechia | 9 |
| 8 | France | 9 |
| 9 | China | 7 |
| 10 | Netherlands | 7 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | economic freedom | 30 |
| 2 | [institutional quality](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/institutional-quality.md) | 15 |
| 3 | [cross-national comparison](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/cross-national-comparison.md) | 14 |
| 4 | [developing countries](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/developing-countries.md) | 12 |
| 5 | [economic growth](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/economic-growth.md) | 10 |
| 6 | [multinational corporations](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/multinational-corporations.md) | 9 |
| 7 | [entrepreneurship](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/entrepreneurship.md) | 8 |
| 8 | [corruption](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corruption.md) | 7 |
| 9 | [foreign direct investment](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/foreign-direct-investment.md) | 7 |
| 10 | government size | 7 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 175 | 1.7 | [Capital is not enough: opportunity entrepreneurship and formal institutions](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-0068-7) | [Small Business Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/small-business-economics.md) | 2018-06-07 | Christopher John Boudreaux, Boris Nikolaev |
| 2 | 134 | 2.3 | [Does institutional quality foster economic complexity? The fundamental drivers of productive capabilities](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-021-02175-4) | [Empirical Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/empirical-economics.md) | 2022-01-07 | Trung V. Vu |
| 3 | 98 | 1.9 | [Determinants of innovation outcomes: The role of institutional quality](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2022.102562) | [Technovation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technovation.md) | 2022-06-14 | Abhijit Sharma, Cristina Sousa, Richard S. Woodward |
| 4 | 98 | 2.8 | [The relationship between firm-level climate change exposure, financial integration, cost of capital and investment efficiency](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2023.102994) | [Journal of International Money and Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-international-money-and-finance.md) | 2023-11-19 | Konstantina K. Agoraki, Maria Giaka, Dimitrios Konstantios et al. |
| 5 | 84 | 2.5 | [Aid effectiveness and donor motives](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106501) | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 2024-01-15 | Axel Dreher, Valentin Lang, Bernhard Reinsberg |

## Used together with

Papers use Economic freedom indices most often with World Development Indicators (World Bank) (47), Worldwide Governance Indicators (36) and Penn World Table (15); it has 38 partners in the code and data network, in the group around World Development…, Eurostat, International Energy….

*What papers use Economic freedom indices together with (at least 3 papers; lift 1 = chance)*

| Used with | Type | Papers using both | Lift |
|---|---|---:|---:|
| [World Development Indicators (World Bank)](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/world-development-indicators-world-bank.md) | Dataset | 47 | 12.6 |
| [Worldwide Governance Indicators](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/worldwide-governance-indicators.md) | Dataset | 36 | 20.3 |
| [Penn World Table](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/penn-world-table.md) | Dataset | 15 | 19.4 |
| [V-Dem](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/v-dem.md) | Dataset | 15 | 20.4 |
| [World Bank Doing Business](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/world-bank-doing-business.md) | Dataset | 14 | 23.6 |
| [World Values Survey](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/world-values-survey.md) | Dataset | 14 | 12.1 |
| [Eurostat](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/eurostat.md) | Dataset | 13 | 2.3 |
| [Freedom House](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/freedom-house.md) | Dataset | 13 | 43.3 |
| [International Country Risk Guide (ICRG)](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/international-country-risk-guide-icrg.md) | Dataset | 12 | 31.3 |
| [Corruption Perceptions Index](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/corruption-perceptions-index.md) | Dataset | 11 | 13.7 |
| [World Bank Enterprise Surveys](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/world-bank-enterprise-surveys.md) | Dataset | 11 | 9.3 |
| [Twitter / X](https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/twitter-x.md) | Dataset | 10 | 0.6 |

The whole network: https://scholar4ai.com/code/network.md

## Papers

*Papers mentioning Economic freedom indices in the last 30 days, newest first.*

| Date | Title | Journal | Authors | Affiliations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-25 | [The cultural roots of state-owned enterprises: evidence from Europe](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-026-01474-7) | [Public Choice](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/public-choice.md) | Ákos Dombi, Piotr Matuszak, Katarzyna Szarzec | Eötvös Loránd University; Instytut Nauk Ekonomicznych; Polish Academy of Sciences; … |
| 2026-10-15 | [Institutional context and the employment effects of artificial intelligence in European SMEs](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2026.103336) | [Telecommunications Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/telecommunications-policy.md) | Anabela Santos, Francesco Molica | Université Libre de Bruxelles |
| 2026-10-12 | [Is state fragility a hindrance to trade openness in Africa?](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10368-026-00816-6) | [International Economics and Economic Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-economics-and-economic-policy.md) | Constant Fouopi Djiogap, Steves Brice Donald Mbah Njoh, Steve Douanla Meli | University of Namur; UCLouvain; University of Ngaoundéré |
| 2026-10-08 | [Populism and sustainable marketing practices: Insights from consumer-packaged goods manufacturers’ new product launches](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-026-01211-y) | [Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-the-academy-of-marketing-science.md) | Martin Heinberg, Mustapha Belkhouja, H.D. Yoon | University of Leeds; Grenoble Ecole de Management; Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales du Nord |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Economic freedom indices. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/economic-freedom-indices

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-datasets-economic-freedom-indices,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Economic freedom indices},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/datasets/economic-freedom-indices}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).