Timothy Taylor, in his Teaching Company course, “America and the New Global Economy,” says that Mahatma Gandhi wanted farms and businesses to remain small so that there would be no exploitation. After Gandhi, the business climate remained unwelcoming with the “license raj”. Professor Taylor explains that the license raj meant businesses needed a plethora of licenses to start and function which retarded econmic development.
Curious about the current business climate, I went to the World Bank “Doing Business” site which ranks nations for their ease of doing business:
http://www.doingbusiness.org/EconomyRankings/?direction=Asc&sort=2
For example…
U.S. : 6 days to implement the procedures for starting a business.
India: 195 days to implement the procedures for starting a business.
Interesting.
The Best Places to Start a Business
Elaine Schwartz
Elaine Schwartz has spent her career sharing the interesting side of economics. At the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ, she has been honored through an Endowed Chair in Economics and the History Department chairmanship. At the same time, she developed curricula and wrote several books including Understanding Our Economy (originally published by Addison Wesley as Economics Our American Economy) and Econ 101 ½ (Avon Books/Harper Collins). Elaine has also written in the Encyclopedia of New Jersey (Rutgers University Press) and was a featured teacher in the Annenberg/CPB video project “The Economics Classroom.” Beyond the classroom, she has presented Econ 101 ½ talks and led workshops for the Foundation for Teaching Economics, the National Council on Economic Education and for the Concord Coalition.