The Ease of Doing Business Index should have been killed long ago

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Editor's note: In June 2013, an Independent Panel Report (IPR) recommended to the World Bank that the aggregate scores and country rankings reported in its Doing Business Report (DBR) be disbanded. According to them, doing away with the scores and rankings would “improve focus on underlying substantive issues and enhance the report’s value.” The World Bank, however, rejected the recommendation. It said disbanding the rankings would diminish the media coverage of DBR and “the report’s influence on policy and public discussion in the short term.” Eight years later, in September 2021, the World Bank officially decided to “discontinue” not just the scores and rankings, but the DBR itself. Scores of commentaries have been published on the decision. The dominant theme is, of course, China. Some commentators argue that the DBR team succumbed to pressure from China to tweak its ranks. Their arguments are backed by an investigative report from the law firm WilmerHale. The report says the offices of then-president Jim Yong Kim and then-CEO Kristalina Georgieva unfairly interfered with the DBR team’s work to improve China’s rankings. They castigate Georgieva and …