Pobres por elección

Esa es la conclusión obvia al leer este resumen de un nuevo informe del Banco Mundial que busca cuantificar los costos de hacer negocios en diversos países del mundo (abrir una empresa, obtener crédito, registrar propiedad, etc.). Creo que esta cita lo resume bien:

"On average, it takes a business in a rich nation six procedures, 8 percent of income per capita, and 27 days to get started; in a poor or lower-middle-income economy, the same process takes 11 procedures, 122 percent of income per capita, and 59 days. In more than a dozen poor countries, registering a new business takes more than 100 days."

Es una locura. Claro, México no se queda atrás: aquí se requieren 8 procedimientos, que tardan 59 días y cuestan mil dólares. Simplemente inexcusable.

Lo trágico es que el exceso de regulaciones idiotas tiene un elevado costo:

"The report estimates that an improvement from the bottom to the top quartile of countries in the ease of doing business is associated with an additional 2.2 percentage points in annual economic growth. An indication of the payoff comes from Turkey and France, each of which saw new business registration increase by 18 percent after the governments reduced the time and cost of starting a business last year. "