At its core, regulation is about freedom to do business. Regulation aims to prevent worker mistreatment by greedy employers (regulation of labor), to ensure that roads and bridges do not collapse (regulation of public procurement), and to protect one’s investments (minority shareholder protections). All too often, however, regulation misses its goal, and one inefficiency replaces another, especially in the form of government overreach in business activity.

The governments in many economies adopt or maintain regulation that burdens entrepreneurs. Whether by intent or ignorance, such regulation limits entrepreneurs’ ability to freely operate a private business. As a result, entrepreneurs resort to informal activity, away from the oversight of regulators and tax collectors, or seek opportunities abroad—or join the ranks of the unemployed. Foreign investors avoid economies that use regulation to manipulate the private sector. By documenting changes in regulation in 12 areas of business activity in 190 economies, Doing Business analyzes regulation that encourages efficiency and supports freedom to do business.1 The data collected by Doing Business address three questions about government.

First, when do governments change regulation with a view to develop their private sector? Second, what are the characteristics of reformist governments? Third, what are the effects of regulatory change on different aspects of economic or investment activity? Answering these questions adds to our knowledge of development. Doing Business benchmarks aspects of business regulation and practice using specific case studies with standardized assumptions. The strength of the business environment is scored on the basis of an economy’s performance in each of the 10 areas included in the ease of doing business ranking . This approach facilitates the comparison of regulation across economies. The ease of doing business score serves as the basis for ranking economies on their business environment: the ranking is obtained by sorting the economies by their scores. The ease of doing business score shows an economy’s absolute position relative to the best regulatory performance, whereas the ease of doing business ranking is an indication of an economy’s position relative to that of other economies.