[extropy-chat] World Bank Report: Doing Business in 2006

[Lee Corbin]

Amara writes

> Doing Business in 2006. How some countries do it better and worse
> than others.
> 
>  From the web site:
> http://www.doingbusiness.org/
> 
> "The Doing Business database provides objective measures of business
> regulations and their enforcement. The Doing Business indicators are
> comparable across 155 economies. They indicate the regulatory costs of
> business and can be used to analyze specific regulations that enhance or
> constrain investment, productivity and growth."
> Report:
> 
> http://www.doingbusiness.org/documents/DoingBusines2006_fullreport.pdf

The table of contents to the .pdf didn't say where the summary info
could be found, but page three already had quite a bit:

    New Zealand has the most business-friendly regulation
    in the world, as measured by the Doing Business indicators
    (table 1.2). Singapore is the runner-up. The United
    States is third. Five other East Asian countries-Hong
    Kong (China), Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Korea-
    are among the top 30. So are the Baltic countries-Lithuania,
    Estonia and Latvia. Their ranking is a remarkable
    achievement, as only a decade has passed since they fi rst
    began reforms.

    But the rankings on the ease of doing business
    also show that many reformers still have a long way
    to go. Although Eastern Europe was the top reforming
    region, some of its countries still rank poorly on the
    ease of doing business. For example, Serbia and Montenegro's
    rank is 92, Croatia's is 118 and Ukraine's 124.
    Egypt, another top reformer in 2004, ranks 141. And
    India, though making big gains on collateral recovery
    and ease of registering property, ranks 116-25 places
    behind China.

    Rankings on the ease of doing business do not tell
    the whole story. The indicator is limited in scope. It does
    not account for a country's proximity to large markets,
    quality of infrastructure services (other than services
    related to trading across borders), the security of property
    from theft and looting, macroeconomic conditions
    or the underlying strength of institutions. Thus while
    Jamaica ranks close (at 43) on the ease of doing business
    to France (at 44), this does not mean that businesses
    are better off operating in Kingston rather than
    in Paris. Crime and macroeconomic imbalances-2
    issues not directly studied in Doing Business-make
    Jamaica a less attractive destination for investment.

    But a high ranking on the ease of doing business
    does mean that the government has created a regulatory
    environment conducive to the operation of business.
    Often, improvements on the Doing Business indicators
    proxy for broader reforms to laws and institutions, which
    affect more than the administrative procedures and the
    time and cost to comply with business regulation.

    TABLE 1.2
    Top 30 economies on the ease of doing business
     1 New Zealand
     2 Singapore
     3 United States
     4 Canada
     5 Norway
     6 Australia
     7 Hong Kong, China
     8 Denmark
     9 United Kingdom
    10 Japan
    11 Ireland
    12 Iceland
    13 Finland
    14 Sweden
    15 Lithuania
    16 Estonia
    17 Switzerland
    18 Belgium
    19 Germany
    20 Thailand
    21 Malaysia
    22 Puerto Rico
    23 Mauritius
    24 Netherlands
    25 Chile
    26 Latvia

    Note: The rankings for all economies are benchmarked to January 2005 and reported
    in the Country tables. The ease of doing business averages country rankings across the
    10 topics covered in Doing Business in 2006. This year's rankings are not comparable
    to last year's as three new sets of indicators-on dealing with licenses, paying taxes
    and trading across borders-have been included. See the Data notes for details.
    Source: Doing Business database.

Nice update on Hernando De Soto's "The Other Path" and "The Mystery of Capital".

Lee