Understanding the effects of ease of doing business on economic growth and development

Abstract

In this project we have examined the relationship between ease of doing business and economic development. Multiple cross country regressions were performed for 160 countries over a 10 year period of 2010-2019 using data from World Bank’s doing business reports. The study identifies 4 key doing business indicators namely starting a business, registering property, protecting minority investors and trading across borders that are found to have the greatest impact on economic development measured through different output parameters – GDP growth, manufacturing growth, export growth, gross fixed capital formation growth, employment to population ratio growth, new firms registered per thousand people growth. In addition to this, a qualitative analysis in the Indian context was used to identify the features of the states which are laggards and leaders in accordance with the state wise EODB ranking released by DIPP (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade)