Get ready for the launch of the first Business Ready (B-READY) report on September 25, 2024!
Business Ready (B-READY), the World Bank Group’s new corporate flagship report, provides a quantitative assessment of the business environment around the world, to support private sector development.
Every year, the project measures the quality of the regulatory framework, the provision of public services in support of firms and markets, and how efficiently they are combined in practice.
The granular data and summary report aim to encourage policy reform to develop a stronger private sector, inform sound policy advice; and forge development policy research.
Topics
B-READY focuses on 10 topics that are organized following the life cycle of the firm and its participation in the market while opening, operating or expanding, closing or reorganizing a business. The topics are Business Entry, Business Location, Utility Services, Labor, Financial Services, International Trade, Taxation, Dispute Resolution, Market Competition, and Business Insolvency.
Data
Data are collected through a combination of expert consultations and firm surveys. While de jure data (according to statutory laws and regulations) are collected from expert consultations, de facto data (reflecting practical implementation) are collected from either expert consultations or World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES).
For expert consultations, data are collected from private sector experts. In exceptional cases, only public sector experts know the answer to some questions. In these cases, public sector experts will be the data source of the consultations.
A balanced approach
B-READY improves upon and replaces the retired Doing Business Report, as it demonstrates a better balance along the most salient aspects of business environment assessment. B-READY evaluates the business environment more holistically than its predecessor, taking not only the perspective of an individual firm’s ease of doing business but also the standpoint of the private sector as a whole. Moreover, the project examines not only the regulatory burden on firms but also the quality of regulations and the provision of related public services over the course of the firms’ life cycle. B-READY systematically includes both de jure information and de facto measurements, collecting information directly from firms based on their experiences with the business environment.
Finally, the combination of expert consultations and firm-level surveys allows B-READY to achieve a better balance between data comparability across economies and data representativeness within a given economy.
Report release
Three B-READY pilot reports are scheduled for release from 2024 to 2026, gradually refining the methodology and expanding geographic coverage. These three reports will lead to the production of the baseline for the complete B-READY dataset.
