World map of the Ease of Doing Business Index. Green nations rank higher, red nations lower. Each color represent one quartile of the ranked nations.

The Ease of Doing Business Index is an index created by the World Bank.[1] Higher rankings indicate better, usually simpler, regulations for businesses and stronger protections of property rights. Research shows that the effect of improving these regulations on economic growth is very strong. In descriptive statistics, a quartile is any of the three values which divide the sorted data set into four equal parts, so that each part represents 1/4th of the sample or population. ... Logo of the World Bank The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, in Romance languages: BIRD), better known as the World Bank, is an international organization whose original mission was to finance the reconstruction of nations devastated by WWII. Now, its mission has expanded to fight poverty by means...

Methodology

The index is based on the study of laws and regulations and with the input and verification by more than 3,500 government officials, lawyers, business consultants, accountants and other professionals routinely administering or advising on legal and regulatory requirements.

The Ease of Doing Business index is meant to measure regulations directly affecting businesses and do not directly measure more general conditions such as a nation's proximity to large markets, quality of infrastructure, inflation, and crime. A nations ranking on the index is based on the average of 10 subindices. They are:

• Starting a business - Procedures, time, cost and minimum capital to open a new business
• Dealing with licenses - Procedures, time and cost of business inspections and licensing (construction industry)
• Hiring and firing workers - Difficulty of hiring index, rigidity of hours of index, difficulty of firing index, hiring cost and firing cost
• Registering property - Procedures, time and cost to register commercial real estate
• Getting credit - Strength of legal rights index, depth of credit information index
• Protecting investors - Indices on the extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder suits
• Paying taxes - Number of taxes paid, hours per year spent preparing tax returns and total tax payable as share of gross profit
• Trading across borders - Number of documents, number of signatures and time necessary to export and import
• Enforcing contracts - Procedures, time and cost to enforce a debt contract
• Closing a business - Time and cost to close down a business, and recovery rate[2]

Looking at an exmaple: In Australia, the best performing nation on the first subindex "Starting a business", there are 2 procedures required to start a business and taking on average 2 days to complete. The official cost is 1.8% of the Gross National Income per capita. There are no minimum capital requred. In Guinea-Bissau, the second worst performing nation on the first subindex, there are 17 procedures required to start a business taking 233 days to complete. The official cost is 261.2% of the gross national income per capita. A minimum capital of 1,028.9% of the gross national income per capita is required. Per capita is a Latin phrase meaning for each head. ...

While simpler regulations often implies a higher rankings, this is not always the case. Protecting the rights of creditors and investor, as well as establishing or upgrading property and credit registries may mean that more regulation are needed.

Research and influence

More than 200 academic papers have used data from the index.[3] The effect of improving regulations on economic growth is very strong. Moving from the worst one-fourth of nations to the best one-fourth implies a 2.3 percentage point increase in annual growth. [4]

The various subcomponents of the index in themselves provide concrete suggestions for improvement. Many of them may be relatively easy to implement and uncontroversial (except perhaps among corrupt officials who may gain from onerous regulations requiring bribes to bypass). As such, the index has influenced many nations to improve their regulations. Several have explicitly targeted to reach a minimum position on the index, for example the top 25 list. In 2005-2005 there were 213 reforms in 112 economies. The 10 top reformers was Georgia, Romania, Mexico, China, Peru, France, Croatia, Guatemala, Ghana, and Tanzania. Several nations did the opposte. They include Bolivia, Eritrea, Hungary, Timor-Leste, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.[5] Bribery is the practice of offering a professional money or other favours in order to circumvent ethics in a variety of professions. ...

The correlations between the subindices are low, which suggest that countries rarely score universally well or universally badly on the indicators. In other words, there is usually much room for partial reform even in the best ranking nations.[6]

Ranking

Detailed description of each nation can be found at: http://www.doingbusiness.org/ExploreEconomies/

	Lists of countries with rankings	*Includes map
Geography	Area* · Coastline · Highest point* · Compactness · Coast/area ratio · Northernmost point
Demographics	Population* · (graphical) · Population density* · Life expectancy* · Infant mortality rate* · Fertility rate* · Birth rate* · Death rate* · Human Development Index* · Income equality* · Literacy rate* · HIV/AIDS adult prevalence rate* · People living with HIV/AIDS* · Unemployment rate* · Population living in poverty* · Immigrant population · Suicide rate
Economy	GDP (nominal) * · GDP (PPP) * · GDP (nominal) per capita* · GDP (PPP) per capita* · GDP (PPP) per capita per hour ·past GDP (nominal), past GDP (PPP) · Current account balance* · Imports* · Exports* · Exports per capita · External debt* · Public debt* · Agricultural output*
Politics	Political rights and civil liberties* · Press freedom* · Capital punishment* · Homosexuality law* · Abortion law* · Date of independence  · UN peacekeepers currently deployed* · Possession of nuclear weapons* · Military expenditures* · Number of active troops* · Conscription* · Perception of corruption* · Ease of doing business* · Economic freedom*
Emissions	Carbon dioxide emissions* (Per capita)* · GDP per emissions* · Emissions per GDP per capita
Consumption	Electricity consumption* · Natural gas consumption