# **1. Introduction**

Every government implements business regulatory reforms aimed at improving the business environment and investment climate for the purposes of promoting higher economic growth, creating more jobs, and enhancing development outcomes. Some business regulatory reforms are more successful than others; some reforms achieve their desired outcomes, while others do not. There could be a multitude of domestic and external reasons for this, including existing legal and regulatory structures, capacity of the government, historical legacy, country location and geography, macroeconomic shocks, and others. It is well documented in the literature that designing good policies is one thing but effectively implementing them is another (Andrews et al 2017, Honig 2018). In the process of implementation, governments’ structures and administrative capabilities play a key role (Andrews et al 2017). Similarly, effective and credible institutions are key determinants of economic productivity (Kim et al 2016); they have a decisive impact on economic development (Acemoglu et al 2005) and have been considered indispensable for (and explicit objects of) reform (OECD 2002, 2007). Not only do better institutions tend to create regulatory environments genuinely more conducive to business conditions rather than privilege a few interest groups (Claessens and Klapper 2005), they help mitigate – and in some circumstances even eliminate – the adverse impact of unwarranted regulation on economic growth (Loayza et al 2005). An overarching conclusion from existing studies is that effective institutions play a crucial role in promoting business regulatory reforms, which consequently matter for economic growth and poverty reduction.

Even so, questions remain. What aspects or characteristics of countries’ existing institutional arrangements and initiatives make them effective in enabling reforms in business regulations? Why do some countries manage to introduce better quality business regulatory regulations and successfully implement the necessary reforms, while others do not? Is it because certain government structures, such as business reform committees (Box 1) – the focus on this paper – help in this regard or do other factors matter more? Do business regulatory committees matter for successful implementation of business regulatory reforms, and if yes, which of the components or practices play a key role for countries to learn from each other? Answering these questions adds to our knowledge of institutional capacities and processes for the development of “fit for purpose” regulations.

Drawing on new global data from the World Bank _Business Reform Committees_ project _,_ this paper aims to contribute to the literature on government structures and their operating models, specifically in their effort to implement coherent and high-quality business regulatory reforms. The project developed and tested a methodology to collect data on the availability, mandate, and characteristics of business reform committees, with the aim of learning more about how business regulatory reforms happen in practice and to provide data and knowledge to help governments strengthen their institutions for better business regulations, in ways consistent with the UN SDG 16’s call for “effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels”. Drawing on this new global dataset that covers 160 economies, we present an analysis of the characteristics of reform committees under which business reform policies are undertaken across different regions and income groups.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the project’s contribution to the literature and evidence. Section 3 documents the process of designing the methodology, data collection, and data validation of the _Reform Committee_ project. Section 4 presents the results from the data collected for 160 economies. Section 5 presents four country case studies. Section 6 discusses implications for future research. Section 7 concludes.

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