Bulgaria

This tenth edition of Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying... Show More + with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting eleven areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and employing workers. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 185 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Bulgaria. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2012 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January - December 2011). Show Less -

This paper investigates the drivers of growth and prosperity in a group of eleven European countries -- Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,... Show More + Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia (the EU11). Since the EU11 began the transformation process, this group of emerging countries has made impressive strides as developing market economies and is anchoring development in European Union institutions. There are reasons to believe that the convergence of EU11 income per capita to Western European levels will continue, but will proceed more slowly. The paper concludes that trade and financial integration have sped along at a spectacular pace in the EU11 in the recent past, although trade in modern services and the integration of government bond and equity markets are somewhat behind. As in the rest of Europe, demographic developments will pose huge challenges for the sustainability of public finance in the EU11 economies. In the next several decades, the EU11 labor force is expected to contract more than labor forces in the rest of the European Union, making it even more urgent that countries in the region reform pension systems, change migration policy, and find incentives to attract talent to the region. Closing the gap with the rest of the European Union in educational attainment levels and improving education quality might significantly soften the constraints imposed by the demographic threats and produce sizable returns in terms of additional income convergence. Show Less -

The government of Bulgaria requested support from Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) primarily in the design of a suitable enabling environment... Show More + for private sector participation in the water, energy, and telecommunications sectors. PPIAF assistance led to significant outcomes being achieved in Bulgaria. In the water sector PPIAF assistance paved the way for the promulgation of the water supply and sewerage services regulation act in February 2005, which led to the establishment of the state energy and water regulatory commission in charge of regulating water supply and sewerage services. In the telecommunications sector, the communications regulation commission was established in 2002 following PPIAF support, which subsequently led to the privatization of the Bulgarian telecommunications company. In the gas sector, PPIAF provided recommendations on the regulatory framework to support the launch of tenders for large new gas distribution regions in Bulgaria, which led to the successful tendering of seven gas distribution concessions. Finally, PPIAF provided support for the whole electricity distribution sector in Bulgaria, providing recommendations on the country's transition to a competitive wholesale market in which a significant portion of internal electricity consumption in Bulgaria was traded in the wholesale market at freely negotiated prices, approved by the regulator. Show Less -

The World Bank Group Bulgaria Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) 2011-2014 is a truly 'European' strategy. It is designed to partner with Bulgaria as a European Union... Show More + (EU) member, and in particular to support strengthening of institutions and policies to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, in line with the Europe 2020 strategy. The foundation of this partnership is the provision of knowledge services. The CPS has three main pillars. Under the first pillar the World Bank provides knowledge and advisory (KA) services in particular for policy reforms to implement select areas of the National Reform Program. The second pillar is focused on EU funds absorption, where the World Bank provides knowledge and advisory support to strengthen institutions and capacity to accelerate EU funds absorption. Knowledge and advisory services will increasingly be provided through fee-based (FBS) service arrangements. The third pillar envisages complementary and selective provision of financing where the World Bank's modest financing support will concentrate on complex reforms and on activities which are not eligible for financing through grant resources under the EU Structural Funds or lending by European institutions and international financial institutions. Show Less -

This document is an executive summary of a report on strengthening higher education in Bulgaria. It begins with an overview of major developments in higher education... Show More + in Bulgaria. Despite the quantitative achievements during the past two decades, higher education in Bulgaria continues to face challenges with regard to quality, efficiency, and accountability for results. It then discusses four outstanding challenges in higher education and options for reforms: Accreditation and quality assurance, governance, financing higher education, and efficiency. For each of these challenges, it presents the challenge itself and the options for reform. Show Less -

This paper empirically investigates whether households affected by income shocks cope by reducing human capital investments. The analysis uses Crisis Response Surveys... Show More + conducted in Armenia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania, and Turkey during 2009 and 2010. A propensity score matching technique is adopted to compare health and education investment decisions among households that were affected by income shocks to the matched comparison group. The authors find that households affected by income shocks reduced some human capital investments. Interestingly, households in these five countries were more likely to adopt health-related coping strategies as opposed to education-related coping strategies. The results from Armenia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Turkey show that households affected by income shocks reduced their visits to doctors and reduced their spending on medicine and medical care significantly more than the matched comparison group. Households affected by income shocks reduced their education investments, but did not adopt harmful education-related coping strategies, such as withdrawing children from schools or moving children from costly private to cheaper public schools. These findings reveal that long-term and possibly intergenerational household welfare could be affected by short-run income shocks and hence underscore the need for governments to employ mitigation measures. Show Less -

This report assesses the impact of the 2009 recession and the fragile recovery of 2010 on the welfare of Bulgarian households and the effectiveness of Government policies... Show More + in mitigating its costs. By the beginning of 2009, the global economic crisis had affected much of Europe, including Bulgaria. The output decline lasted five quarters, followed by a modest increase during the rest of 2010. However, despite the large fluctuation in output during 2009-10, households preserved their 2008 income level throughout this period. What lies behind this example of successful income smoothing amid a large regional and national recession? Which were the key transmission channels through which the macro crisis filtered through to the household level? What population groups were most affected? What was the role played by public policy in mitigating the impact of the crisis? What lessons can be learned from the Bulgarian experience on protecting households during a crisis, while maintaining prudent fiscal and macroeconomic policies? To answer these questions, the report uses an exceptionally rich survey to assess how households were impacted, how they responded to the crisis and how/if they benefited from a comprehensive government policy package. Show Less -

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations.... Show More + It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Bulgaria. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2011 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January- December 2010). The data not only highlight the extent of obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in designing regulatory reform. Show Less -

Removing regulatory obstacles that create barriers to business is a major objective for economic policymakers. There is broad understanding among policymakers and development... Show More + practitioners that microeconomic reforms aimed at strengthening property rights, unleashing competition, and reducing the cost of doing business are critical to creating a sound investment climate and promoting economic growth (World Bank 2004; World Bank 2005; Lewis 2004). It is also commonly agreed that these changes need to be credible and sustained for private firms to respond by increasing investment and production (World Bank 2005). This report summarizes the findings of three topical studies of the World Bank: Administrative and Regulatory Barriers to Business (volume two) studies the overall burden of regulation for companies in comparison to other new European Union (EU) peers and specifically assesses Information Technology (IT) and manufacturing companies and the role of key stakeholders. The ex-post impact assessment of the act on limiting administrative regulation and administrative control on economic activity (Volume three) makes an assessment of how the act has been enforced, identifies and estimates the impacts of the act, and provides recommendations for amendments. Reforming the regime of state fees (volume four) examines how reforms to the structure of state fees could decrease the regulatory burden for firms. Show Less -

The Status of Projects in Execution (SOPE) Report for FY10 provides information on all International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Development... Show More + Association (IDA), and trust funded projects that were active as of June 30, 2010. The report is intended to bridge the gap in information available to the public between the project appraisal document or program document, disclosed after the Bank approves a project, and the implementation completion report, disclosed after the project closes. In addition to the project progress description, the FY10 SOPE report contains project level comparisons of disbursement estimates and actual disbursements, and a table showing the loan/credit/grant amount and disbursements to date. Show Less -