Doing Business 2007: "What Gets Measured Gets Done" |
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Washington, DC
Featured Speaker:
Dr. Simeon Djankov
Chief Economist, Indicators Group, Financial & Private Sector Vice Presidency
World Bank & the International Finance Corporation
The 2007 edition of International Finance Corporation's highly acclaimed report Doing Business, which ranks the ease of doing business in 175 countries worldwide, was launched on September 2006. The analysis in Doing Business has direct relevance for policy reform. It reveals the relationship between business regulation and economic and social outcomes, allowing policymakers to see how particular laws and regulations are associated with poverty, corruption, employment, access to credit, the size of the informal economy, and the entry of new firms. The Doing Business initiative has become a catalyst for reform and an important measurement tool for progress in reform.
During the Doing Business meeting on February 9th, Dr. Djankov presented an in-depth look at the crucial role the Doing Business reports serve in encouraging and providing guidance on the design of reforms. He shared some surprising findings when rating countries with regulations most compatible with doing business. Nordic countries such as Denmark and Norway ranked a high seventh and ninth, respectively. Top reformers included not only transition countries and regions, such as Africa but it included developed countries such as France.
Approximately 55 reforms around the world can be attributed to the Doing Business initiative. On a social perspective, these reforms were shown to significantly lower the rate of unemployment in these countries - revealing a strong link between a more flexible labor law and a lower unemployment rate.
The recording of the meeting and presentation can be found below.
Doing Business 2007 focuses on reforms, identifies top reformers in business regulation, and best practices in how to reform. This volume is the fourth in a series of annual reports investigating global regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Co-sponsored by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation - the private sector arm of the World Bank Group - this year's report measures quantitative indicators on business regulations and their enforcement compared across 175 countries - from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe - and over time. www.doingbusiness.org
Simeon Djankov is the creator of the Doing Business series. In his 11 years at the World Bank, he has worked on regional trade agreements in North Africa, enterprise restructuring and privatization in transition economies, corporate governance in East Asia, and regulatory reforms around the world. Simeon was a principal author of the World Development Report 2002. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and has published over 60 articles in academic journals, including in Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Comparative Economics.
Audio Transcript:
Use player above to listen now or right-click on the following link and select "Save as.." to download the audio file to your computer.
- Doing Business 2007 [MP3, 70MB]
