According to the World Bank’s just-released Doing Business 2013—which looks into various reform measures to rank 185 economies on the ease of doing business—the United States continues to trail Singapore, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. The only surprise is that the U.S. didn’t drop further in the rankings.
According to the report, policymakers in 108 economies implemented 201 regulatory reforms in the last year alone that made it easier for their entrepreneurs to do business. But the U.S. wasn’t part of this group.
In fact, in the sub-rankings of Doing Business, the U.S. showed just the opposite tendency: America’s competitiveness dropped in seven of the 10 sub-indicators, including paying taxes, enforcing contracts, and starting a business.
Given the deteriorating regulatory environment and our flagging institutional competitiveness, it is not surprising that our economic recovery process has been so disappointingly un-dynamic or that job creation has lagged so badly.
The time to reverse policy course is now. As Americans look to their future, they should choose to advance economic freedom, the key to spurring a vibrant, job-creating economy.