Doing Business

The World Bank’s Doing Business (www.doingbusiness.org), first launched in 2003, is a highly successful resource for “comparing business regulations.” In-depth data and reports about and rankings of regulations relevant to doing business are supplied for 175 economies, along with tools for comparative analyses. The annually prepared “Ease of Doing Business Rankings,” also called the “Economy Rankings,” is the primary scale. Each of the 175 countries is ranked based on averages of ten measures and their subcomponents. For instance in 2007, Singapore is ranked in first place as the optimal place to conduct business, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo has the lowest score (175). The United States is ranked in third place. Users can also view the rankings by various attributes, including regions and countries. The ten main topics analyzed in detail and considered as critical elements associated with the ease of doing business are: