Economic Freedom and Welfare Before and After the Crisis

About the book: This book offers an extensive review of market-oriented economic reforms since 1970, and considers the question of whether more liberal economic policy yields greater social welfare. The author demonstrates that, despite the widespread uniformity of economic policy reforms across countries over the past 45 years, welfare differences persist. Stankov posits that the crisis has stalled the momentum of economic freedom reforms across the globe and policy agendas have gradually shifted from pro-market to pro-redistribution. The book argues that this shift is inevitable: market-oriented reforms bring social consequences, which become a natural bedfellow of populism.