Thursday, September 10, 2009

Doing Business Rankings Oversold

No one will disagree that when it comes to red tape less is better than more. Which is what the World Bank's Doing Business (DB) survey was supposed to measure and nothing else. A tagline – measuring business regulations – was even added presumably to avoid intellectually dishonest souls from marketing it as something it simply isn't.

However the recent report by the WB's own Independent Evaluation Group finds that the list is fraught with problems: too few informants, lack of transparency and high volatility of ranking. More importantly, it cannot be used on its own so that you'd better combine our 24th place in its 2009 ranking with our 132nd spot in the Logistics Performance Index to get a better picture. Which means that you have to heavily discount most of the stuff you hear about the DB survey.

5 comments:

  1. Kozémotandé11 September, 2009 12:37

    These reports must necessarily be frought with problems because they are written by bureaucrats with an academic perspective. In fact do these people have the moral rights to judge and rate others after what we have seen recently?

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  2. C vre. Ena ene pake dimun ki pense ki ti pu bon si fer headquarters WB/IMF vine ene shopping mall kot ti kav gagne gato pima 24/7/365. Si zot kon dimun ki kalifier pou sa, dire zot apply.

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  3. Regulations are essential. So is common sense. Something which the slave cum minis prins doesn't seem to have a lot. Otherwise he wouldn't have blurted out the following trade-off: sell out the beachfront or you eat sand.

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  4. Guess you don't need a brain scan if you believe in the DB rankings.

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  5. How much business was done in Mauritius since the crappy Doing Business ranking was put on a pedestal?

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