The 2002 Arab Human Development Report attempted to account for the fact that the Arab region does poorly on the Human Development Index, yet does not suffer the same economic woes of similar nations.
These scholars posited three deficits: freedom, women's empowerment, and knowledge.
[2] US President George W. Bush acknowledged the role of Western nations in contributing to the freedom deficit in the Middle East.
[3] The conservative American Enterprise Institute issued a commentary in 2004 defending the War on Terrorism as being crucial to ending the freedom deficit.
[5] Beyond the Middle East, libertarian blogger John Pugsley applied the term to China, noting that the US/China trade deficit is really a result of a freedom deficit in China.