World Bank Ease of Doing Business Index

World Bank Ease of Doing Business Index
Name	World Bank Ease of Doing Business Index
Formation	2003
Type	Index
Purpose	Comparative measure of regulatory environment for business
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Region served	Worldwide

Contents

World Bank Ease of Doing Business Index The Ease of Doing Business Index was a comparative metric compiled by the World Bank Group that ranked jurisdictions on the regulatory environment for starting, operating, and closing a business. The Index was used alongside reports from International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Asian Development Bank to inform policy debates in capitals such as Washington, D.C., London, New Delhi, Beijing, and Brasília.

Overview

The Index produced annual rankings of economies including United States, China, India, Germany, and Brazil by scoring areas like construction permitting in Tokyo, property registration in Paris, and tax compliance in Moscow while influencing decisions in institutions such as the International Finance Corporation and ministries in South Africa, Mexico, Turkey, Nigeria. Governments from Canada to Vietnam engaged with the Index alongside investors from BlackRock, Vanguard Group, Goldman Sachs, and sovereign funds from Norway and Qatar Investment Authority when assessing regulatory reforms. Major recipients of recommendations included city administrations in Shanghai, Istanbul, São Paulo, and regional authorities in California and Bavaria.

The methodology organized indicators into topics like starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency — similar domains examined by International Labour Organization, World Trade Organization, United Nations Development Programme, and Transparency International. Data collection combined legal and regulatory questionnaires answered by practitioners in capitals such as Riyadh, Cairo, and Lima and standardized case studies influenced by legal frameworks in Rome, Athens, Madrid, and Seoul. The scoring system used distance-to-frontier measures and normalized scores used in comparative work by Pew Research Center, Brookings Institution, Chatham House, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to produce aggregate rankings that policymakers in Argentina, Egypt, Philippines, and Bangladesh used for reform prioritization.

Launched in the early 2000s, the Index evolved through methodological revisions and expanded country coverage, with early phases linked to advisory outreach by Paul Wolfowitz-era teams and later reforms under senior managers associated with Robert Zoellick and Jim Yong Kim. It grew as the International Finance Corporation promoted private sector development in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia, interacting with reform programs in Chile, Poland, Romania, and Georgia. High-profile updates coincided with global events like the 2008 financial crisis, the emergence of BRICS discussions, and the Sustainable Development Goals agenda promoted at the United Nations General Assembly. Methodological changes sometimes mirrored practices in comparative indices created by Economist Intelligence Unit, Heritage Foundation, Fraser Institute, and World Economic Forum.

Scholars, civil society groups such as Oxfam and Amnesty International, and legislators in parliaments of United Kingdom, United States Congress, and European Parliament criticized the Index for privileging deregulatory reforms favored by private investors like JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley over labor protections endorsed by organizations including International Labour Organization and World Health Organization. Methodological disputes involved academics from Harvard University, London School of Economics, Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Yale University who questioned indicator validity, data transparency, and country comparability. Controversies included allegations of data irregularities and political pressure involving senior staff and investigations referenced in coverage by outlets such as The New York Times, Financial Times, The Economist, and Reuters.

Despite debate, the Index shaped reform agendas in ministries of finance and commerce across Kenya, Indonesia, Poland, and Georgia, and influenced conditionalities in lending by multilateral lenders like Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and bilateral partners such as United States Agency for International Development and Department for International Development. Private investors and rating agencies including Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Ratings sometimes considered regulatory rankings alongside macroeconomic indicators when assessing sovereign and corporate risk in markets from Chile to Malaysia. City leaders in Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Zurich cited improvements in specific topics to attract foreign direct investment from conglomerates such as SoftBank, Siemens, and Toyota.

Comparable indices used by researchers and policy analysts include the Global Competitiveness Report by World Economic Forum, the Index of Economic Freedom by Heritage Foundation, the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, the Global Competitiveness Index, fiscal transparency measures by International Budget Partnership, and subnational rankings produced by think tanks such as Brookings Institution, Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Chatham House. Academic measures from University of Chicago and project datasets maintained by Penn World Table and World Input-Output Database offer complementary perspectives on business conditions, regulatory burdens, and institutional quality in jurisdictions like Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Netherlands.

Category:International economic indicators