The econometric index

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Although this led to a more complex structure than for most polls, this survey + interviews combination has dominated report study design in the past quarter-century. From Edelman’s Trust Barometer to Deloitte’s Women @ Work study (some recent examples from FT Longitude here), the survey has become a feature of corporate thought leadership. But, of course, it’s not the only research method in use, as we’ll discover below.

The econometric index
You know you’ve built a successful ranking model when national governments start setting new policies, or revising existing ones, with the explicit goal of gaining a higher position on your index. Such was the impact of the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index, which it launched in 2003 and has updated annually for nearly 20 years.


The study was designed to measure how easy governments made it to list of bolivia cell phone numbers do business in their country by gathering a large series of data points or indicators across 10 different categories, feeding into a detailed econometric index. For example, one of the ten categories in the index dealt with “Starting a business”, which included a range of sub-indicators, such as how many days it takes to set up a new business in that country (full methodology available here). As the index became widely known and used, policymakers naturally sought to improve their scores. In 2011/12, for example, 108 countries made over 200 reforms to help boost their scores. It’s hard to think of any other reports that have had this degree of influence.

Unfortunately, its huge success also led to its untimely demise. In 2021, amid allegations of data manipulation, the World Bank shut the report down. Ironically, these allegations related to senior leaders in the bank trying to pressure the Doing Business team to adjust the index methodology to boost the scores of certain countries.

But there’s no need to mourn this loss for too long. The World Bank is set to relaunch the remodelled rankings on October 3rd 2024, rebranded as Business Ready. Government officials in China are already so keen that their country performs well in the new rankings that they’ve been submitting proposed revisions to the methodology since last year.