Doing Business
The World Bank has an annual global doing business report available here <http://www.doingbusiness.org/>. The latest data has been pulled from the 2016 report.
Current Status
Kristen Kennedy pulled and Nenani Sichone vetted this data and it was completed on April 1st for the 7.21 packaging.
It should be consolidated into 7.21. Link to teamwork task: https://pardeecenter.teamwork.com/tasks/3766554 - We should update this series again in early 2017 when the next report comes out.
Series pulled from the World Bank Doing Business report
| Table | Group | Definition | Source | Last IFs Update | UsedInPreprocessor | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusConstructionPermitDays | Government | The number of days need to get a construction permit | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/28 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusConstructionPermitProcedures | Government | Number of procedures needed to get a construction permit | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/28 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusContainerExportCostUSD | Government | Cost of exporting one container in USD | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusContainerImportCostUSD | Government | Cost of importing one container in USD | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusContractEnforceDays | Government | Number of days required to enforce a contract | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusCostClose | Government | Average cost of closing a business in percent of estate | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusCreditTransparency | Government | World Bank index on the depth of credit information (0-6) | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusDirectorLiability | Government | World Bank index on the extent of director liability | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusDisclosureIndex | Government | World Bank index on the extent of disclosure | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusEmpRigiIndex | Government | World Bank index on the rigidity of employment | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2010/03/30 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusExportDocumentationNeeded | Government | Number of documents needed to export | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusHiringDiffIndex | Government | World Bank index documenting the difficulty in hiring workers 0-100 | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2010/03/30 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusImportDays | Government | Number of days required to import | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusImportDocumentationNeeded | Government | Number of documents needed to import | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusinessCostofStarting | Governance | Cost of registring a business as a percent of per capita income | WDI BATCH PULL | 2015/07/14 | Yes | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusinessCustomsDays | Government | Number of days required to clear customs | WDI 2015 September BATCH PULL | 2015/10/08 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusinessProcedures | Government | Number of procedures required to start a business | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusinessPropRegDays | Government | Number of days required to registar property | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusinessRanking | Government | Total overall ranking of ease of doing business | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusinessStartDays | Government | Number of days required to start a business | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusInvestorProtection | Government | World bank index measuring the strength of investor protection (0-10) | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusLegalRightsStrengthIndex | Government | World Bank index of the strength of legal rights, specifically property rights (0-10) | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusPropertyProceduresRequired | Government | Number of procedures required to register for property | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusRedundancyCostperWeekSalary | Government | Cost of firing a worker (in weeks of salary) | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2010/03/30 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusRedundancyIndex | Government | World Bank index on the difficulty in firing a worker | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2010/03/30 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusShareholderSuits | Government | World Bank index measuring the ability of shareholders to take legal action | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusTax%Profit | Government | Total tax rate as a percentage of profit | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusTaxHoursperPerson | Government | Number of hours per year a person works to pay taxes | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusTimeClose | Government | Average number of years needed to close a business | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No | |
| SeriesGovWBDoingBusTotalTaxRate | Government | The total tax rate expressed as a share of commercial profits. | World Bank Doing Business; http://www.doingbusiness.org/ | 2014/04/07 | No |
Instructions on pulling doing business series
Doing Business Documentation
First I downloaded the data from the World Bank’s Doing Business website. From the home page, I went to the data tab, then clicked create a custom historical data set. http://www.doingbusiness.org/custom-query
I selected all economies, topics, and Doing Business reports. Then I created the report and downloaded this excel file. I cleaned up this excel file by removing the “DB” in front of every year. Also, some countries had city data and not country data. City data was excluded. Any countries that had no country data, but city data were given blanks in that given year. The Blanks in this data were originally had two periods in a cell, so all of these periods were removed. Formatting was removed. I also went through and picked out the series that needed to be updated.
Certain series we had in the system are not being measured in the Doing Business data. If the data was included in the original download spreadsheet, then it was nearly always marked as Old methodology. Series that were not included in this data were typically not updated last time this data was pulled as well.
Old series that were not updated are as follows: Rigidity of employment, difficulty of hiring, worker redundancy, redundancy index, average days to clear customs, and total tax rate (not a percentage of profit). The first four fall into the Labor Market regulation data, which the World Bank didn't include in their index of ease of doing business. There is separate data for this, however, the variables still don't seem to quite match up. There is no redundancy Index, there is no difficulty of hiring index, or rigidity of employment index. Average days to clear customs used old methodology. Total tax rate % profit was changed to Total tax rate % commercial profits the previous time this was pulled.
This left me with 24 series to update.
I then created a new translation table. This table is labeled doing business countries. Afterwards, I blended the data. Some series were blended for both years and data points depending on the series.
The following series had both years and data points blended: Credit Transparency, cost of starting a business, and doing business ranking. Every other series was blended for data points. However, the last series, Total Tax Rate was not blended at all. When this series is blended 2015 data is largely deleted. As suggested, I left this series unblended.