Online Program

The World Bank's Enterprise Surveys Initiative

Keywords: business environment, emerging markets, firm-level surveys, World Bank, private sector

The World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys provide the most comprehensive establishment-level data in emerging markets. Data are available from over 125,000 firms in over 125 economies. Face-to-face interviews with business owners and top managers cover a broad range of business environment topics including access to finance, corruption, crime, competition, gender, infrastructure, innovation, labor, obstacles to growth, and performance measures. Typically 1200-1800 interviews are conducted in larger economies, 360 interviews are conducted in medium-sized economies, and for smaller economies, 150 interviews take place. Registered, manufacturing and services firms in the private sector with 5+ employees are targeted for interview. In addition to the core Enterprise Survey, Micro-enterprise, Informal sector and Financial Crisis Surveys have also been conducted. The firm-level data is made freely available to registered users of the website. The website also contains indicators derived from the data with customized graphing and downloading tools to assist policymakers in understanding and exploring the day-to-day business environment realities of entrepreneurs in the developing world.