Auszug aus dem Index of Economic Freedom 2007 (Kapitel 1):
…Looking at the planet as a whole, never in history has poverty been eradicated so rapidly as it has been during our lifetimes. Moreover, individual income inequalities have been falling, and this is the first time they have fallen since the eve of the Industrial Revolution. The aggregate numbers have never looked better. Looking at the world distribution of income (WDI), the world is a better place.Poverty and inequality are, of course, difficult to measure because of the arduousness of collecting data, the ambiguity of the definition of poverty, and debate concerning the proper unit of measures of both poverty and inequality. However, the mounting empirical evidence points to significant improvements in these two dimensions over the past two to three decades. Although this is certainly good news, the analysis presented in this discussion also shows that, alongside these positive global trends, the continued deterioration of the economic situation of African countries is pushing up our measures of poverty rates and head counts in that continent. The positive economic income growth experienced by billions of Asian citizens, along with the negative growth experienced by the majority of Africans, has turned poverty, which used to be an essentially Asian phenomenon, into an essentially African problem… Hier gibt’s das gesamte Kapitel.

(Michael Miersch)