I know they are a right-wing think tank, that is why I referenced them when it comes to rank "market economy" factors that people who believe in and want to have "free markets" care about.
In what way is it a political propaganda piece? From what I can tell it's a pretty transparent ranking of countries by factors that the organisation cares about.
While the Scandinavian countries have high taxes and regulated labour markets, they have deregulated markets, strong property protections and are very simple to do business in.
One of their policy goals is deregulation in the United States. Thus, they have a vested interest in showing that the United States has too many regulations.
And they don't even define what their categories mean. I'm willing to bet that "labor freedom" to them means "right-to-work" and no minimum wage, for example. In any case, without proper measurable definitions, they can easily manipulate their index to say whatever they want.
I think that pages 403-415 provides pretty good definitions[0]
But that's not my point. My point is only that there are aspects of a typical free market economy (by American right wing definitions) that are better represented in countries other than the US.
In what way is it a political propaganda piece? From what I can tell it's a pretty transparent ranking of countries by factors that the organisation cares about.
While the Scandinavian countries have high taxes and regulated labour markets, they have deregulated markets, strong property protections and are very simple to do business in.