If you are a Greek pharmacist, you are guaranteed a 35% profit on the drugs that you sell, your store can be no closer than 820 feet from another pharmacy, and you probably paid close to $400,000 for a business license. Called “closed professions” because Greek regulations dominate their character, they include taxi drivers, lawyers, and 70 other livelihoods. 

At the World Bank’s Doing Business Index, which ranks the “ease of doing business” in a country, Greece is #109 out of 183 countries. To start a business in Greece, for example, requires 15 procedures. In the U.S.(ranked #4), the number is 8 and for New Zealand (ranked #2), only 1.

The Economic Lesson 

Easily doing business takes us straight to the GDP. As the yardstick that measures the value of the annual production of goods and services in a country, the GDP depends on entrepreneurs, business owners and managers for its sustenance.