The Economics of Freedom

What is freedom? Can we measure it? Does it affect policy? This book develops an original measure of freedom called ‘Autonomy Freedom’, consistent with J. S. Mill’s view of autonomy, and applies it to issues in policy and political design. The work pursues three aims. First, it extends classical liberalism beyond exclusive reliance on negative freedom so as to take autonomous behavior explicitly into account. Second, it grounds on firm conceptual foundations a new standard in the measurement of freedom that can be fruitfully coupled with existing gauges. Third, it shows empirically that individual preferences for redistribution and cross-country differences in welfare spending in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries are driven by the degree of ‘autonomy freedom’ that individuals enjoy. By means of an interdisciplinary approach and a sophisticated econometric methodology, the book takes an explicit stand in defense of freedom and sets the basis for a liberalism based upon people’s actions and institutions.

Author Biography

Sebastiano Bavetta is Professor of Economics at the University of Palermo, Italy and visiting professor of Economics and Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is a research associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS) at the London School of Economics (UK), where he obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Economics. He has published in The Journal of Theoretical Politics, Social Choice and Welfare, Theory and Decision, Constitutional Political Economy and Economic Affairs, among others. He co-authored a book in Italian (Liberalism in the Era of Conflict, 2008). His research interests focus on policy and institutional design and on the measurement of freedom and its policy and political implications. He has extensive political and administrative experiences in the government of the city of Palermo as well as in Italian local governmental agencies. Pietro Navarra is Professor of Public Economics at the University of Messina, Italy, where he is also Deputy Vice-Chancellor in charge of the budget. He is also visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, USA and a research associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS) at the London School of Economics. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Buckingham. Professor Navarra co-edited with Ram Mudambi and Giuseppe Sobbrio Rules and Reason: Perspectives on Constitutional Political Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and coauthored with them Rules, Choice, and Strategy: The Political Economy of Italian Electoral Reform (2001). He has published more than fifty articles in journals such as the Journal of International Business Studies, Public Choice, the European Journal of Political Economy, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Economics of Governance and Applied Economics. His research interests embrace the measurement of freedom, the relation between political institutions and economic reform and the interplay between individual empowerment, entrepreneurship and economic growth.