The World Bank recently released the results of its 2008 World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey. The results show something free marketers around the globe should appreciate. After accounting for differences in per capita income across countries, the World Bank researchers found that countries with easier and less expensive procedures for registering new businesses have higher rates of new business creation.
The figure below shows the relationship between rates of new-business creation and the time it takes to register new businesses. It shows that in countries where it is harder to start a new business (the country’s rank on ease of starting a business is a higher number), rates of new-business entry are lower (the entry-rate density percentage is smaller). (The United States ranked sixth in ease of doing business among the countries in the study.)
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