The impact of business regulatory reforms on economic growth

Haidar, Jamal Ibrahim-The impact of business regulatory reforms on economic growth I investigate the link between business regulatory reforms and economic growth in 172 countries. I create a 5 year dataset on business regulatory reforms from the World Bank's Doing Business reports. Then, I test the hypothesis that business regulatory reforms increase economic growth, using data on micro-economic reforms. These data do not suffer the endogeneity issues associated with other datasets on changes in economic institutions. The results provide a robust support for the claim that business regulatory reforms are good for economic growth. The paper establishes that, on average, each business regulatory reform is associated with a 0.15% increase in growth rate of GDP. J. Japanese Int. Economies 26 (3)(2012) 285-307. The World Bank, Washington, DC, United States; Paris School of Economics, Paris, France; University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris, France. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.