Transparent Government and Business Regulation : "Open for Business?"
This paper presents new indicators for 185 economies measuring the accessibility of business regulatory information. The paper shows that the new data can serve as meaningful proxies for the overall transparency of governments and the new data have...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/12/20464582/transparent-government-business-regulation-open-business http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20698 |
| Summary: | This paper presents new indicators for
185 economies measuring the accessibility of business
regulatory information. The paper shows that the new data
can serve as meaningful proxies for the overall transparency
of governments and the new data have explanatory power for
the quality of business regulation. The paper finds the
regulatory environment to be most opaque in Sub-Saharan
Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, where
businesses can often only access basic regulatory
information by meeting a government official. By contrast,
in countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, access
is more direct via websites, public billboards, and
brochures. Moreover, Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development economies are more consistent in their
transparency efforts across government agencies. The paper
also finds that while resources as proxied by income levels
play some role in explaining why some economies make more
information easily accessible than others, those resources
are not the only determining factor; regardless of income,
more democratic governments tend to make greater
transparency efforts. Finally, easier access to basic
regulatory information is associated with greater regulatory
quality and less corruption. |
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