Vol.:(0123456789) Constitutional Political Economy https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-019-09296-0 1 3 ORIGINAL PAPER Economic freedom and materialism: an empirical analysis Megan V. Teague 1  · Virgil Henry Storr 2  · Rosemarie Fike 3 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract While economists have found a positive relationship between norms like general- ized trust and economic growth, several scholars outside of economics have argued that there is a tradeof between economic growth and morality. In particular, they argue that as markets develop, market values, e.g. a focus on money and material possessions, also increase. In this article we empirically test this claim using data from the Economic Freedom of the World project, the World Bank, and the World Values Surveys. Our fndings suggest that countries with more economic freedom, i.e. those countries that embrace markets to a greater extent, are less materialistic. We also fnd that countries with a higher GDP per capita are correlated with less materialism. Keywords Markets · Materialism · Values · Economic freedom JEL Classifcation Z1 · Z10 · Z19 · P5 · P52 We are grateful to Peter Boettke, Phil Keefer, Michael Makovi, Ross Kenyon, John Schuler, and Alexander Krischik for their comments and insights. * Megan V. Teague mteague@wcupa.edu Virgil Henry Storr vstorr@gmu.edu Rosemarie Fike Rosemarie.Fike@tcu.edu 1 West Chester University of Pennslyvania, 700 South High Street, West Chester, PA 19383, USA 2 George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, 3G4, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA 3 Texas Christian University, 2800 South University Drive, Fort Worth, TX 76109, USA