# **3.3. Data collection**

The data collection was an ambitious endeavor with several challenges encountered during implementation. First, the project’s established timeline was initially 2020-2021, however, as a result of COVID and following the discontinuation of the World Bank’s _Doing Business Report_ ,<sup>3</sup> the timeline was revised to 2020-2022. Both of these events affected the project which, among other challenges, also experienced contributor attrition. Collecting data from an additional 60 economies added in the second year also proved to be a lot more challenging. Data collection in the second year focused mostly on economies where data collection had proved to be a challenge in the first year.

Data collection was carried out over two rounds – the first from February to July 2020, and the second from February to July 2022. The majority of contributors were public sector respondents who were carefully selected by the team based on selection criterion that emphasized their experience and ability to provide the relevant information. Public sector experts worked for government ministries or agencies involved in reform committees or members of the reform committees themselves. In the cases where a reform committee had members from the private sector, an effort was made to collect data from them as well, although that was in less than 10 percent of cases; the main source was the public sector.

Most of these respondents were very carefully selected from the pool of government officials who contribute to reports and databases of the World Bank’s Global Indicators Group. Through desk research, a few others were selected on the basis of their membership in business reform committees or ministries where these committees were housed. At every instance, the team ensured that the selected respondent had first-hand knowledge of the subject. These respondents were contacted by phone and e-mail, were invited to collaborate in the study, were introduced to the methodology, and were informed that their collaboration would be on a _pro bono_ basis _._

# **3.4. Sampling strategy**

The data collection was carried out across two rounds by administering questionnaires to select respondents. The final dataset is the result of the combined responses across the two years of data collection across 160 economies, providing adequate representativeness across regions and income groups (Table 2).<sup>4</sup> In cases where it was not possible to verify the information through desk research (for example, there was no publicly available regulation or information was not available, nor possible to obtain) or through contributor follow up, the data was marked missing (“..”). For the economies with no reform committee (30) the additional corresponding variables in the dataset were marked as “Not Applicable (N/A)”. We have no reasons to believe that our conclusions and findings would be fundamentally altered if the remaining economies were included.

Table 2: Data Collection

||**Sample**|**Sample**|**Reform**<br>**Committee**<br>**Yes**|**Reform**<br>**Committee**<br>**No**|**Data not**<br>**available**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Income|High income|52|26|16|10|
|grouping|Upper-middleincome|45|31|8|6|

> 3 _Doing Business_ discontinuation: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2021/09/16/world-bank-group-to- <u>discontinue-doing-business-report</u>

> 4 The dataset is available on the Business Reform Committees website: <u>https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/brief/business-reform-committees</u>

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