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Today's decision by the World Bank to suspend the publication of the Doing Business is a definitely a major event in the history of global development policy, especially because the bank vehementely denied in the past its indicators are biased. THREAD 
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2020/08/27/doing-business---data-irregularities-statement
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2020/08/27/doing-business---data-irregularities-statement
The Doing Business report measures and ranks countries' institutions. It assigns each country a score, which is inteded to reflect the quality of its 'business environment'. Many call it biased and partial. Here's my fave article on the DB: https://brill.com/view/journals/iolr/15/1/article-p168_168.xml?language=en
In more than a decade, public criticism always came from outsiders. But in 2018 former WB's chief economist declared to the @WSJ that Chile's drop in 21 posititons in 2018 was politically motivated. Here's the story: https://www.wsj.com/articles/world-bank-unfairly-influenced-its-own-competitiveness-rankings-1515797620
I narrate this story in my PhD thesis on the @NDB_int and the @AIIB_Official and how they compare to the WB. The two developing countries-led institutions have publicly rejected adopting rankings and institutional assessment tools.
https://www.aiib.org/en/news-events/asian-infrastructure-finance/index.html#:~:text=Home%20%2D%20Asian%20Infrastructure%20Finance%202019%20%7C%20AIIB%20report&text=Infrastructure%20projects%20focused%20on%20cross,Finance%20report%20developed%20by%20AIIB.
https://www.aiib.org/en/news-events/asian-infrastructure-finance/index.html#:~:text=Home%20%2D%20Asian%20Infrastructure%20Finance%202019%20%7C%20AIIB%20report&text=Infrastructure%20projects%20focused%20on%20cross,Finance%20report%20developed%20by%20AIIB.
Following this bombastic declaration by its own top economist, Paul Romer, the WB did then what it just did now: announced it would initiate an auditing and an external review process. Even the language now and then is very similar. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-13/chile-demands-answers-in-world-bank-business-ranking-controversy
After two weeks, Paul Romer resigned from its post (and later became a Nobel laureate 
). He issued a public apologies letter. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/01/25/paul-romer-quits-after-an-embarrassing-row
). He issued a public apologies letter. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/01/25/paul-romer-quits-after-an-embarrassing-row
Then Chile's President, @michexpresident, issued a public statement condemning the impartiality of the Doing Business, noting that rankings may afect a country's investment inflow and its overall development. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-worldbank/chile-slams-world-bank-for-bias-in-competitiveness-rankings-idUSKBN1F20SN
Six months later, the externan reviewers issued a report concluding that there were no signs of 'political manipulation'. They only criticized the multiples and succesive changes to the report's methodology. https://www.wsj.com/articles/world-bank-competitiveness-rankings-werent-manipulated-audit-shows-1531337868
There is now mounting speculation and reports on why this case was 'case reopened'. The same @WSJ has reported insiders' information that data on countries like Saudi Arabia, China and the United Arab Emirates were inappropriately altered. https://www.wsj.com/articles/world-bank-delays-report-on-national-competitiveness-rankings-amid-concerns-of-data-manipulation-11598554654
@charlesjkenny reminded that Saudi Arabia was named 'top reformer' in 2019: https://twitter.com/charlesjkenny/status/1299062847503298560?s=20
The new WB's move comes only two years after it issued a bold statement denying any chance of undue interference with the DB methodology: "Objective data is not subject to political influence", it said in 2018 after Romer's declarations. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2018/01/13/world-bank-group-statement-on-doing-business-index
Will be interesting to watch next steps (and also next stories about 'why' and 'who' provoked this internally). But one thing is certain: if institutional reform is still to be a key element of mainstream global development agenda, good answers will need to be provided. /End.
Might be of interest @andreroncaglia @pedrolrossi @Joao_P_Romero @CriticalDev @lauraabcarvalho @bollemdb
