Access World Bank’s “Doing Business” Data with Wolfram|Alpha

A few weeks ago, we pointed out some new additions to Wolfram|Alpha from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators database, primarily focused on labor and employment around the world. We’ve also incorporated data about doing business in most countries, collected by a World Bank project called, appropriately, “Doing Business”.

This data covers a wide range of issues, including import/export costs, business tax rates, and the time required to complete various business-related activities. Try the following examples to get a better sense of the breadth of this dataset:

• Export costs in Brazil vs. Argentina »
• New businesses registered in Japan vs. India »
• Credit bureau coverage in Asia »
• Europe total business tax rate »
• How much does it cost to start a business in India, Mexico, Singapore »
• Time required to start a business »

Wolfram|Alpha can also rank countries according to a number of business-related indices. Ask about the ease of doing business in Eurozone countries, for example, and you’ll see that Ireland and Greece occupy the ends of this spectrum. In this case, a higher index score indicates a regulatory environment that is generally unfriendly to business operation; in light of Greece’s recent economic woes, it should come as no surprise to see that country at the bottom of the list. (Note that for all the properties in this dataset, you can click the “Definition” button in the input interpretation or in other pods to get more details on each property.)

As we noted before, data availability can vary wildly among countries and regions. But there’s still an enormous amount of fascinating and useful information here about the business and regulatory environments of most countries. Let us know in the comments if you come up with any new insights from this data, and check back soon as we continue to roll out new socioeconomic data.