Back to The Undercover Economist homepageThis report serves as a reminder that one of the most compelling roles for the World Bank is to generate this sort of data, which is an expensive yet invaluable public good. It is also yet another prod to the bureaucrats of the world: if you can’t do anything useful, at least get out of the way.
That was the Financial Times leader on the World Bank’s Doing Business report, which investigates the regulatory obstacles to performing simple business operations such as buying property or trading goods across borders.
But may I refine the recommendation to commend the website - not only is this research profoundly important (disclosure: the authors are former colleagues of mine) but the website offers loads of good data and fun widgets (xls). And what more could you want?
Tim writes about the economics of everyday life. His 
