America is less economically free than Jordan, Mauritius, and the United Arab Emirates

America ranks 16th in economic freedom. — (Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The Fraser Institute's 2015 Economic Freedom of the World report finds the United States falling to 16th place on the global free market scale, behind top ten nations like Jordan, Mauritius, and the United Arab Emirates.

This marks a decline from last year's 12th place ranking, but a slight improvement on 2013's 17th place. In the early 2000s and prior, America typically made the top five.

The rankings are determined by a combination of measures pertaining to size of government, regulatory load, rule of law, and more. The study also finds that generally, "nations that are economically free outperform non-free nations in indicators of well-being," like civil liberties protections and life expectancy.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.