Tenth in a series of annual reports comparing business regulations in 185 economies, Doing Business 2013 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity around the world.

Success in today's globalized business environment requires deep knowledge of varied areas, and the willingness to engage in commerce not just across geographic areas, but cross-culturally and environmentally as well. Doing Business in Latin America offers an in-depth look at a complex region, integrating practitioners’ and scholars’ ideas to examine business conducted in Latin America through the lens of international business and globalization. The book introduces, discusses, and explains in detail the historical, economic, cultural, political, and technological impacts of globalization and business conduct in Latin American countries. It also considers the contemporary business environment of the area, looking at how current country and regional factors have affected the process of starting and operating businesses. Finally, it looks forward to the emerging trends that portend the future of business in these countries. With its combination of contemporary analysis and historical discussion, this book is a vital tool to all scholars and practitioners with an interest in the opportunities offered by the current Latin American business environment.

Vietnam: Doing Business and Investing in ... Guide Volume 1 Strategic, Practical Information, Regulations, Contacts

This paper discusses Burkina Faso’s ex-post assessment of longer-term program engagement. Economic growth has fluctuated above regional standards, averaging 5.3 percent between 2007 and 2012. The improvements in the agricultural sector, as a result of authorities’ strong push for reforms, and investments in the sector, mitigated the impact of unfavorable weather conditions. Authorities responded to high commodity price pressure with temporary exemption from custom fees, value-added tax on basic products, sales of food at below market prices, and suspension of the automatic oil price mechanism. Inflation has remained generally low since 2010, despite food shortages caused by the drought in 2011.

This book discusses the period before and after the Soviet collapse and the impact on Georgia’s economy and society. It examines the political economy and the technicalities of Georgia’s groundbreaking reforms in 2004-2012 and how they were part of the broad state-building and modernization effort. The author elaborates on the three main pillars of Georgia’s growth and investor outreach: health of the sovereign balance sheet, soundness of the business environment and the efficiency of the banking sector. The book also provides cross-country discussion to show how the state building lessons from Georgia could be applied to other similar economies and will be of interest to scholars and professionals in the fields of public finance and economic growth.

In considering diffusion from a global perspective, this book provides timely new insights into its application in a variety of fields and at many levels of both legal and non-legal orderings. This collection contributes to the wider theoretical debate concerning the movement of law and legal norms by engaging with concrete examples of legal diffusion, in jurisdictions as diverse as Albania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Kuwait. These examples, taken together, provide a comprehensive illustration of the theoretical debates concerning the diffusion of laws and norms in terms of both process and form. This international, multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological volume brings together scholars from law and social science with experience in mixed and hybrid jurisdictions, and advances the conversation about legal and normative diffusion across the academy. It represents a robust challenge to many preconceived ideas about legal movement and, as such, will be of interest to academics and students working in the fields of Law, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Legal Education and comparative method.

This review was prepared as part of the process of Colombia's accession to OECD Membership. It describes the corporate governance setting for both listed companies in Colombia and the state-owned sector.

This report describes how Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) corridor performance measurement and monitoring (CPMM) helps to achieve the objectives of the CAREC Transport and Trade Facilitation Strategy and its Implementation Action Plan. It presents the CPMM methodology and discusses the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders, especially the private sector. It highlights ongoing efforts to provide accurate and reliable indicators despite the challenges of measuring corridor performance in the CAREC context. The extensive depth of data collected and the richness of information that CPMM has been providing since 2009 supports detailed policy analysis and formulation. Trade facilitation indicators have been developed to inform CAREC's Development Effectiveness Review. These indicators provide a basis of comparison or benchmarking of one location (border crossing point or corridor segment) against another in terms of (i) the efficiency of border management agency policies and procedures in regulating trade, (ii) infrastructure quality, and, in due course, (iii) the quality and performance of trade logistics service providers. The four indicators include the standard measures of time and cost as the main components. Selected corridor performance data are then analyzed to identify the physical and non-physical barriers to trade and transit traffic encountered at specific locations, helping to pinpoint the causes of excessive delays and costs. With this study, ADB underscores the value of CPMM for CAREC countries (and for countries participating in other subregional programs) as they craft policies and consider investments to facilitate trade.

This book presents the nature, challenges and successful cases of female entrepreneurship in Iran. The first part of the book provides a comprehensive insight into Iran’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and its accessibility for women by exploring and analyzing data from relevant national and international sources, in particular from the Statistical Center of Iran, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, World Bank (Doing Business, Gender Equality and Development), World Economic Forum (Global Gender Gap Report, Global Competitiveness Report), and the United Nations Development Plan. Trends in entrepreneurial perceptions and intentions, as well as developments in entrepreneurial activity in Iran from 2008 to 2013, are also studied for both genders. In order to establish a benchmark for the relative position of Iranian women in the region, the main related indices are also compared to those in Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. In turn, the second part of the book highlights selected role models of growth-oriented female Iranian entrepreneurs who have successfully run a variety of traditionally male-dominated businesses in Iran and internationally, despite the hostile business environment and various gender stereotypes.