How the World Bank and IMF use the Doing Business Report to Promote Labour Market Deregulation in Developing Countries (ICFTU, Jun 06)

This paper documents seven cases of recent country-level policy reports and recommendations issued by the World Bank and IMF that use Doing Business indicators on labour regulation to propose reducing or doing away with various types of labour regulations, in spite of the claim of those responsible for the publication that such recommendations constitute a misuse of the data. It is beyond the scope of this paper to determine why several World Bank units, as well as the IMF, are misinterpreting data produced by another Bank unit. Whatever be the explanation for this situation, corrective action is called for. It is suggested at the conclusion of this paper that the whole topic of labour regulations, which by the Doing Business team�s own acknowledgement does not lend itself to judgements by them on appropriate levels of regulation, should be removed from the purview of Doing Business.

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