The Institute for Development Impact (I4DI) in partnership with SEO Amsterdam Economics and Prism Research and Consulting will collect endline data and carry out a rigorous impact analysis to measure effects of the Business Environment Reforms at the Sub-National Level in Bosnia and Herzegovina on behalf of the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group.
The main objective of this study is to assess the impact of sub-national (municipal and cantonal) regulatory simplification reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) from 2016 to 2018. Our team will collect endline data in 18 treatment municipalities and 2 cantons for a total of 20 sub-national localities, and will include an additional 20 localities as a counterfactual, focused on: 1) regulatory simplification of all business-related permits, licenses, etc.; 2) improvement in regulatory service delivery for business; 3) increase in investment generated/facilitated/retained; and 4) improvement in SME services.
According to the “Doing Business Report” in 2017, BiH currently ranks 86 among 190 economies in the World Bank Group’s annual ease of doing business rankings. Starting a business, dealing with construction permits, securing access to electricity, along with adequate property registration and tax collection are just some of the business environment areas where BiH is lagging behind other ranked countries. Ultimately, simplification of these stifling procedures will help reduce structural inefficiencies which are directly creating barriers for business startup and sustained development.
The consortium brings together a team of experts with over 20 years of expertise, skills and background experience in rigorous impact evaluation and socio-economic programming. I4DI’s expert team will be in charge of designing the data collection, econometric analysis and rigorous impact assessment methodology, including identifying solutions to control for possible biases resulting from deviations from initial treatment design. The study will incorporate a comparative analysis of baseline and endline data to study evidence and measure results, and impact.
