The World Bank Group has 'paused' the publication of the Doing Business report after irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data used in the report..
The World Bank Group has 'paused' the publication of the Doing Business report after irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data used in the report.
A World Bank statement said, "A number of irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data in the Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 reports, published in October 2017 and 2019. The changes in the data were inconsistent with the Doing Business methodology."
"The Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank has been briefed on the situation as have the authorities of the countries that were most affected by the data irregularities. The publication of the Doing Business report will be paused as we conduct our assessment," the statement said.
According to the now-withdrawn World Bank report, the economies with the most notable improvement in Doing Business 2020 were Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Togo, Bahrain, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, China, India and Nigeria. In 2018-2019, these countries implemented one-fifth of all the reforms recorded worldwide.
Published since 2003, the report ranks 190 economies based on how easy it is to do business there, taking into account trading regulations, property rights, contract enforcement, investment laws, the availability of credit and a number of other factors.
Bloomberg says that in recent years, there have been questions about the integrity of the rankings. Paul Romer reportedly quit in 2018 as the World Bank’s chief economist after questioning changes to Chile’s order in the Doing Business report.
