Economic Freedom Summary Index, Economic Freedom of the World, 25 Sep 2025
2023 overall score: 7.64, rank: 27
Territory in south Central America, ruled since 1903 by the República de Panama
Panama (Spanish: Panamá), officially the Republic of Panama (Spanish: República de Panamá), is a country in Central America, bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half the country's 4 million people.
Geographical type: Territory
Latitude: 9° N — Longitude: 80° W
Area: 74,177 km²
ISO 3166-2 code: PA
Measures of Freedom
Human Freedom Index [PDF], The Human Freedom Index 2023: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom
2021: 7.57, Rank: 53, Personal freedom: 7.62, Economic freedom: 7.51
2021: 7.57, Rank: 53, Personal freedom: 7.62, Economic freedom: 7.51
Panama: Country Profile, Freedom in the World, 2025
Status: Free, Aggregate Score: 83/100, Political Rights: 35/40, Civil Liberties: 48/60
Status: Free, Aggregate Score: 83/100, Political Rights: 35/40, Civil Liberties: 48/60
Panama'’s political institutions are democratic, with competitive elections and orderly rotations of power. Freedoms of expression and association are generally respected. However, corruption and impunity are serious challenges, affecting the justice system and the highest levels of government. Discrimination against members of ethnic and racial minority groups is common, and Indigenous groups have struggled to uphold their legal rights with respect to land and development projects.
Articles
The Secret State, by Carl Oglesby, KenRahn.com, 19 Dec 1991
Speech to the Massachusetts Libertarian Party; details various events from the 1945 dismantling of the Office of Strategic Services to the 1991 death of Danny Casolaro, which Oglesby said were reason to be worried about "a secret and invisible state"
Speech to the Massachusetts Libertarian Party; details various events from the 1945 dismantling of the Office of Strategic Services to the 1991 death of Danny Casolaro, which Oglesby said were reason to be worried about "a secret and invisible state"
1970s and 1980s: The Noriega Connection
The CIA was exposed time and again throughout these decades in big-time international dope trafficking ... The rash of drug cases around former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega—once a darling of the CIA until he dared oppose U.S. policy in Nicaragua—provides a glimpse into the true heart of the contemporary CIA. Noriega received as much as $10 million a month from the Medellin Cartel (whose profits were $3 million a day) plus $200,000 a year from the CIA for the use of Panamanian runways in transhipment of cocaine to the north.
The CIA was exposed time and again throughout these decades in big-time international dope trafficking ... The rash of drug cases around former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega—once a darling of the CIA until he dared oppose U.S. policy in Nicaragua—provides a glimpse into the true heart of the contemporary CIA. Noriega received as much as $10 million a month from the Medellin Cartel (whose profits were $3 million a day) plus $200,000 a year from the CIA for the use of Panamanian runways in transhipment of cocaine to the north.
The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Panama" as of 22 Sep 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.