Der Zusammenhang zwischen politischer und ökonomischer Freiheit: Eine empirische Untersuchung

The actual occasion for this study have been the attempts by several East and South East Asian countries, among them China, to confer certain specific economic liberties on the one hand but to disallow political rights on the other. The question thus arises whether economic liberties can exist independently of political rights, i.e. whether private property, freedom to run a business or to choose a job, contractual freedom and freedom of pricing can be utilized merely as regulation and discovery mechanisms. In other words: whether an authoritarian political system can continue to exist side by side with economic liberties. This issue was also discussed in Germany in the 30''s of this century and was dealt with in economic literature, for example by WALTER EUCKEN and FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK. After the end of the Second World War, EUCKEN and VON HAYEK again took up this discussion, and in the 50''s and 60''s MILTON FRIEDMAN also became involved. First of all this discussion is taken up once again with the objective of deriving special hypotheses for an empirical analysis. After that, the method of estimation and the data will be introduced. Finally, the empirical results will be presented and several conclusions will be drawn for the current economic policy discussion.