Sebastiano Bavetta is Professor of Economics at the University of Palermo, Italy and visiting professor of Economics and Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is a research associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS) at the London School of Economics (UK), where he obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy of Economics. He has published in The Journal of Theoretical Politics, Social Choice and Welfare, Theory and Decision, Constitutional Political Economy and Economic Affairs, among others. He co-authored a book in Italian (Liberalism in the Era of Conflict, 2008). His research interests focus on policy and institutional design and on the measurement of freedom and its policy and political implications. He has extensive political and administrative experiences in the government of the city of Palermo as well as in Italian local governmental agencies. Pietro Navarra is Professor of Public Economics at the University of Messina, Italy, where he is also Deputy Vice-Chancellor in charge of the budget. He is also visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, USA and a research associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS) at the London School of Economics. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Buckingham. Professor Navarra co-edited with Ram Mudambi and Giuseppe Sobbrio Rules and Reason: Perspectives on Constitutional Political Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and coauthored with them Rules, Choice, and Strategy: The Political Economy of Italian Electoral Reform (2001). He has published more than fifty articles in journals such as the Journal of International Business Studies, Public Choice, the European Journal of Political Economy, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Economics of Governance and Applied Economics. His research interests embrace the measurement of freedom, the relation between political institutions and economic reform and the interplay between individual empowerment, entrepreneurship and economic growth.

'The Economics of Freedom is an interesting work of both philosophically inspired social science and empirically informed political philosophy. The authors construct a measure of autonomy freedom on the basis of data in the World Value Survey and compare how worldwide differences in attitudes correlate with social welfare policies. This book will intrigue researchers in comparative politics, welfare economics, political economy, and political philosophy.' Luc Bovens, London School of Economics

• 1. Introduction; Part I. Concepts and Tools: 2. Choice and freedom; 3. Measuring autonomy freedom; 4. The empirical measure of autonomy; Part II. Autonomy Freedom and the Welfare State: 5. Why redistribute?; 6. Autonomy freedom and redistribution; 7. Autonomy freedom and welfare spending; 8. Conclusion.