Word Bank releases Doing Business reports and it review business regulations and their enforcement across countries.
It was introduced in 2004.
A high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm.
The rankings are determined by sorting the aggregate distance to frontier scores on 10 topics, each consisting of several indicators, giving equal weight to each topic. These are:
Starting a business – Procedures, time, cost and minimum capital to open a new business
Dealing with construction permits – Procedures, time and cost to build a warehouse
Getting electricity – procedures, time and cost required for a business to obtain a permanent electricity connection for a newly constructed warehouse
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, cost and time necessary to export and import
Enforcing contracts – Procedures, time and cost to enforce a debt contract
Resolving insolvency – The time, cost and recovery rate (%) under bankruptcy proceeding
