For over a decade, The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, Washington's preeminent think tank, have tracked the march of economic freedom around the world with the influential Index of Economic Freedom.

This year, the 2007 Index of Economic Freedom has been redesigned to be accessible to the congressional staffer and the college student, the finance minister and the financial advisor. The Index measures 10 freedoms - from property rights to entrepreneurship - in 157 countries. For the first time, the 2007 edition also analyzes regions to showcase the freest economies in every part of the world.

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative public policy research institute based in Washington, D.C., in the United States.

Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."

Founded in 1973, Heritage's initial funding came from political conservative Joseph Coors, co-owner of the Coors Brewing Company.[citation needed] Funding from Coors was later augmented by financial support from billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Conservative activist Paul Weyrich was its first head. Since 1977, Heritage's president has been Edwin Feulner, Jr., previously the staff director of the House Republican Study Committee and a former staff assistant to U.S. Congressman Phil Crane.

Until 2001, the Heritage Foundation published Policy Review, a public policy journal, which was then acquired by the Hoover Institution. From 1995 to 2005, the Heritage Foundation ran Townhall.com, a conservative website. (More news from Wikipedia.org)

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is an international daily newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company in New York City, New York, USA, with Asian and European editions, and a worldwide daily circulation of more than 2 million as of 2006, with 931,000 paying online subscribers.

It was the largest-circulation newspaper in the United States until November 2003, when it was surpassed by USA Today. Its main rival as a daily financial newspaper is the London-based Financial Times, which also publishes several international editions.

The Journal newspaper primarily covers U.S. and international business and financial news and issues—the paper's name comes from Wall Street, the street in New York City which is the heart of the financial district. It has been printed continuously since being founded July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The newspaper has won the Pulitzer Prize thirty-three times, including 2007 prizes for backdated stock options and for the adverse impact of China's booming economy. (More news from Wikipedia.org)

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About the Author:

Dr. Kane is one of The Heritage Foundation's leading scholars on economic policy issues. Recognizing the unique impact of the war against terrorism on the U.S. economy, through his research, he has illuminated the underlying strength of the current economic expansion despite the shock to labor markets. His 2004 papers on the false signals of job losses in Labor Department data changed the course of the "jobless recovery" debate. Dr. Kane has also aggressively challenged the anti-globalization movement, dispelling myths about outsourcing and American decline, and has published groundbreaking research on the deployment of U.S. forces globally.

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