Doing Business, and Politics

The World Bank’s Doing Business project claims to provide

objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 190 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level.

In the Wall Street Journal, Josh Zumbrun and Ian Talley report that the ranking must be revised.

Over time, World Bank staff put a heavy thumb on the scales of its report by repeatedly changing the methodology that was used to calculate the country rankings, Mr. Romer said.

The focus of the World Bank’s corrections will be changes that had the effect of sharply penalizing the ranking of Chile under the most recent term of Chile’s outgoing president, Michelle Bachelet.

Paul Romer, the World Bank’s chief economist, apologized.

Update (Jan 16): On his blog, Paul Romer tries to clarify.