Analyzing Invisible Costs of Business In South Asian Countries: Evidence from the Enterprise Survey and Doing Business Survey

Abstract

This study has delved into two surveys that contains data for over 190 countries business environments the World Bank Enterprise Survey and the Doing Business Survey. Invisible costs mostly ignored by productivity analysis of countries need their due share in these estimates, the present study will carry out these estimations for South Asian countries. The paper provides evidence from the GTFV and NTFV ratios of the Cobb-Douglas production functions for each country; for the fact that these invisible costs do play a major role in undermining the productivity levels for firms. The paper also presents an index with the add-ons variables with an attempt to give a more realistic view of the business environments in respective countries ranking: Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Bangladesh respectively.