Who gains from economic freedom? A panel analysis on decile income levels

This paper revisits Saccone’s (2020) analysis of the impact of economic freedom on decile income shares for a panel of developed and developing nations during 1980-2014. Saccone found that higher levels of economic freedom corresponded with lower income shares for the bottom 8 deciles and higher shares only for the top 2 deciles. Instead of decile income shares, this paper focuses on the impact of economic freedom on decile income levels. We find that the income per capita for all 10 deciles increases as economic freedom increases.