http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2009/06/26/why-doing-business-damages-institutions/

I have mentioned the Doing Business rankings in several previous posts so it is only fair that I acknowledge that there is some strong criticism floating around, and that it all seems pretty sensible. More than just wanting to like these specific rankings, I really want to believe that outside measurement and imposed competition can make gov'ts more accountable. I particularly liked these rankings as opposed to Heritage (http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking.aspx) and others because they reference specific government functions and offer specific prescriptions for reform. Of course, all of this is only useful if those prescriptions do in fact lead to positive change, which the link argues against.

I sincerely hope that the Doing Business group will address these criticisms and/or some other group will step up to take their place (in long the run the impartiality of DB as part of the World Bank has to be questioned). In order to promote competition we need more measurement and dissemination of information about the damage done by regulation, so that both private actors can estimate the costs associated with locating in a given country and so that governments can quantify the damage they are doing to the private market.