Recommendation
The Bank Group and stakeholders need to consider the indicators in a country context and interpret them accordingly. DB should be clear about the limitations of the indicators and their use for a broader policy dialogue on a country's development priorities .

Finding: Information Sources
The information about laws and regulations is provided by a worldwide network of expert informants. But there are few informants – mostly lawyers -- for each indicator in each country. For the 'paying taxes' indicator, DB relies exclusively on a single firm to provide both the underlying methodology and the data for 142 countries.

Recommendation
The DB team should take a strategic approach to selecting and increasing the number of informants:

• Establish and disclose selection criteria for informants.
• Focus particular effort on the indicators with fewest informants and countries with the least reliable information.
• Formalize the contributions of the supplemental informants by having them fill out the questionnaire.
• Involve Bank Group staff more actively to help identify informants.

Finding: Transparency
The DB makes ongoing changes to previously presented data. For instance, there were over 2,200 changes between August and October 2007 to the posted 2007 data. These altered the published rankings for 48 countries by 10 or more positions. Although DB makes available a great deal of information about its data and methods, it remains insufficiently transparent about the number and types of informants for each indicator and the changes made to previously published data and their effects on the rankings.

Recommendation
The DB web site should disclose all data corrections and changes as they are made, explaining their effect on the rankings. To facilitate research, the web site should offer a link to previously published datasets. DB should also disclose the number of informants for each indicator at the country level.

Finding: Reform Influence
The DB indicators have been highly effective in drawing attention to the burdens of business regulation. They have motivated discussion among policy makers, but have had less influence on the choice, scope, and design of reforms. Policy makers and Bank Group staff report that they draw on a range of analytical material to determine the nature, sequence, and direction of reforms. As a cross-country benchmarking exercise, DB cannot be expected to capture the country-specific considerations involved in prioritizing, sequencing, and designing policy reforms.

 Recommendation
To make its reform analysis more meaningful, the DB team should:

• Make clear that DB measures improvements to regulatory costs and burdens, which is only one dimension of any overall reform of the investment climate.
• Trace the impact of DB reforms at the country level: The DB team should work with country units to analyze the effects of implementing the reforms measured by the DB (such as revised legislation or streamlined processes) on: (i) firm performance, (ii) perceptions of business managers on related regulatory burdens, and (iii) the efficiency of the regulatory environment in the country.

 Click here  for more findings and recommendations