Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS)
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank
The BEEPS is designed to provide firm-level data on a broad range of issues about the business environment and performance of firms, including business-government relations, firm financing, labor, infrastructure, informal payments and corruption, and other topics such as training and innovation.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank Group.
The BEEPS is used by the private sector and international development organizations. Also used as a data source for other governance indicators.
Business survey - Interviews.
The 2005 round of the BEEPS consisted of 9,655 interviews, including 1,715 for the manufacturing overlay. Sample sizes ranged from 200 in smaller countries, to 599 in Russia. The 2008 round of the BEEPS consisted of 11,306 interviews. Sample sizes ranged from 116 in smaller countries such as Montenegro, to over 1,000 in Russia and Turkey.
Country Coverage: 29 European and Central Asian (ECA) region economies.
Data Coverage: 2005 and 2008
Expected update: 2012
Over 9,000 observations were collected in the 2005 and over 11,000 in the 2008 rounds, respectively. Over 25,000 firms have been surveyed since the project began.
The last round of the BEEPS included firms that employ five or more people that are located in major urban centers. The sample was constructed to provide a picture of the whole economy, and includes firms in manufacturing and service sectors. These firms are privately owned, partially state-owned, and foreign owned of different sizes, incomes, and primary activity.
For more information please contact the project director: Steven Fries (friess@ebrd.com).
The data collected from these surveys is presented in an “Input Sheet”, which allows the user to create customized charts in 6 areas: “Obstacles Diamonds” and the “Obstacles Bar” (descriptions of the size of the obstacles faced in a given country). The “Corruption & Capture Diamond” and “Corruption & Capture Bar” are alternative depictions of the degree of grand corruption and administrative corruption in the country. The “Capture Diamond” and “Capture Bar” charts are alternative depictions of the country’s state capture components. The Diamond charts are based on average estimates only, rescaled from 0 to 1, and feature comparisons with the Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union average performance. The Bar charts always represent percentile ratings (whereby more means “better” performance) and are designed to illustrate the standard errors around the estimates. The standard errors associated with these estimates are also reported, together with the number of firms on which the estimation is based.
The degree to which a firm’s performance is affected is measured on a 1 (not at all) to 4 (very much) scale. A higher average value for each country represents worse performance by the government, and a worse obstacle for business performance.
Tool for managers and international development agencies to compare countries with regard to investment climate, competitiveness and governance in the specific areas.
The BEEPS should not be used as a general indicator for governance or democracy. In the area of corruption, for example, the results are survey perceptions on business corruption as seen by business firms. Countries’ relative positions on these indicators are subject to margins of error, and thus precise rankings cannot be derived.
