Doing business in 2006

Doing Business in 2006 is the third in a series of annual reports investigating regulations that ease doing business and those that constrain it. This edition focuses on job creation. New quantitative indicators on business regulations and their enforcement can be compared across 155 countries - from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe - and over time. Doing Business in 2006 updates the indicators presented in previous reports: starting a business, hiring and firing workers, getting credit, protecting investors, enforcing contracts, and closing a business. Three new sets of measures are added: paying taxes, getting licenses, and trading across borders. The indicators are used to analyze economic and social outcomes such as productivity, investment, informality, corruption, unemployment and poverty, and identify what reforms have worked, where and why.