Dani Rodrik takes notice of the Economic Freedom of the World report.

He is more favorable to us than I'd expected, but does criticize us for overselling the case,

El Salvador is a prime example of the "build-it-and-they-will-come" fallacy: all you need to do is to get the basics right, and then markets will do the rest.

This criticism may have some merit. I do tend to believe that if a group of people (e.g., a nation state) gets the institutions and policies consistent with some notion of economic freedom, then that group of people will grow and prosper economically. I don't believe this is a "day follows night" kind of thing however, and freely admit that some countries could do well for a time without a lot of economic freedom and some with a lot of economic freedom could do poorly. There are long and variable lags and other things matter.

But having said that I see El Salvador differently. First, I see a nation with a history of low economic freedom and political stability with little credibility in the eyes of domestic and foreign investors. It has only recently begun to stabilize and improve its economic institutions. I would not expect it to grow quickly immediately. These things take time. I would predict things to improve only after some degree of credibility is earned. In El Salvador's case, this could take a long time.

Second, maybe El S will never grow for some reason. Maybe the culture is messed up. Maybe the climate is a killer. Maybe God hates them. I don't know. Maybe El S will defy my world view that economic freedom leads to growth and prosperity. I doubt it (see the first point) but it could happen. Does this invalidate the general model? Sure a lot of examples like El Salvadors would force us to question the general model, but there are very few exceptions to the general rule that economic freedom and growth/prosperity are related.

Part of the problem is the construction of the one graph from our book that he cites. It relates the level of economic freedom with growth. We are careful in the book to qualify these graphs accordingly,

we are not necessarily arguing that there is a direct causal relation between economic freedom and the variables considered below. In other words, these graphics are no substitute for real scholarly investigation that controls for other factors. Nonetheless, we believe that the graphs provide some information about the contrast between the nature and characteristics of market-oriented economies and those of controlled economies. At the very least, these figures suggest potential fruitful areas for future research.

I wouldn't argue that the level of economic freedom alone correlates with growth. I would include the change in economic freedom and other variables too. Statistically, there is a lot of evidence that economic freedom, especially increases in economic freedom, is powerfully related to economic growth.

Outliers like El Salvador may exist but citing them is hardly evidence that an important general pattern doesn't exist.