The world has become a much better place in recent decades when it comes to poverty and prosperity: extreme poverty has been significantly reduced and prosperity has increased.
The most obvious benefit of economic freedom is that, as a system, it is the most conducive to widespread prosperity, that is, to high or rising income and consumption for the bulk of the population.
The ECB seeks to increase trading in non-performing loans by reducing the pricing gap between prospective investors and banks. For this to happen, there need to be structural reforms aimed at reducing recovery times, as well as better access to information about loans and debtors. Only when the price offered by investors is in line with the price demanded by banks will we see more activity in distressed debt markets.