Doing Business: Independent Evaluation: Taking the Measure of the World Bank/IFC Doing Business Indicators

Contents......Page 5
Abbreviations......Page 7
Glossary and Conventions Used in this Report......Page 9
Acknowledgments......Page 11
Foreword......Page 13
Preface......Page 15
Executive Summary......Page 17
Management Response......Page 21
Chairperson’s Summary: Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE)......Page 25
1 The Ideas Behind the Indicators......Page 31
Role of the Investment Climate in Private Sector Growth......Page 33
Three Principles Underlying What DB Measures......Page 36
Two Principles Underlying DB’s Methodology......Page 38
2 Collecting Information and Constructing the Rankings......Page 41
The Number of Informants......Page 43
Table 2.1 Average Number of Completed Questionnaires per Indicator in Each Country Is Low......Page 44
Validating the Data......Page 46
Publishing and Revising the Data......Page 47
Table 2.2 Large Changes in 2007 Rankings Resulting from Data Revisions......Page 48
3 What Do the Indicators Measure?......Page 51
General Characteristics of the Indicators......Page 53
Table 3.2 The Starting a Business Indicator......Page 57
4 Communicating and Using the Indicators......Page 69
Presentation Style......Page 71
Box 4.1 Key Features of DB Communications......Page 72
Box 4.2 Keeping up with the Neighbors: DB Indicators Foster Benchmarking......Page 73
A Guide to Policy Reform......Page 74
A Research Tool......Page 76
An Addition to the Bank’s Toolkit......Page 77
5 Findings and Recommendations......Page 79
The Framework Underlying the DB Indicators......Page 81
Reliability of Information......Page 82
Box 5.1 If DB Were to Be Extended to Other Topics......Page 83
Recommendations......Page 84
Appendixes......Page 85
A: Methodology......Page 87
B: How Equitably Do the Rankings Reward Reforms?......Page 91
C: Differences between Data in 2007 DB Report and DB Web site (October 2007) for Same Data Collection Period......Page 97
D: Common Law/Civil Law Analysis......Page 99
E: Standard Interview Protocols......Page 107
Endnotes......Page 111
Bibliography......Page 117
Figure 1.1 DB Measures Selected Aspects of Investment Climate......Page 34
Box 3.1 Civil and Common Law Approaches to Regulation......Page 54
Figure 3.1 Countries with Similar GNI Can Have Different DB Scores......Page 56
Box 3.3 A Paper “Reform” in Afghanistan......Page 58
Table 3.3 The Paying Taxes Indicator......Page 59
Table 3.4 The Employing Workers Indicator......Page 60
Box 3.6 Does Top-Ranked Imply “Well Regulated” … or “Unregulated”?......Page 62
Box 3.7 Measures on the Costs and Difficulty of Firing Workers and the ILO Conventions......Page 63
Figure 2.2 Why Do You Participate? For Prestige and to Share Expertise......Page 45
Table 1.1 DB Covers Only Some of the Top Constraints to Business......Page 35
Table 1.2 The 10 DB Indicators and Their Components......Page 37
Table 1.3 What DB Covers......Page 39
Table 1.4 The Informal Economy Casts a Long Shadow......Page 40
Table 3.1 Do Civil Law Countries Score Lower Than Common Law Countries?......Page 55
Table 3.5 Employing Workers: Highest- and Lowest-Ranked Countries......Page 61
Table 3.6 The Enforcing Contracts Indicator......Page 64
Table 3.7 The Getting Credit Indicator......Page 66