Poverty Alleviation and Business Deregulation: A Contemporary Worldwide Correlation Enlightening Heavily Regulated Poor Economies

The paper investigates the empirical relationships between the deregulation of small businesses, measured as Ease of Doing Business (DB) scores, and poverty levels, quantified as Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, purchasing power parity (PPP), of all the economies in the world in the recent past. specifically, the study analyzes the correlation and the association between the EDB Scores and the GNI Per Capita, PPP of all economies in 2019. The research is a cross-sectional, triangulation of correlational, associational, hypothesis-testing & comparative analysis of empirical relationships between the key variables of the study. Data on DB Scores and GNI Per Capita, PPP are provided by the World Bank's Doing Business 2020 report and development Indicators respectively. The study results show that there are significant positive relationships between the DB scores and the GNI Per Capita, PPP of all the economies of the world. Hence, Economies with relatively higher DB Scores, generally have more GNI Per Capita, PPP than their counterparts. It is, therefore, recommendable for all economies to resolutely reform business policies (deregulation) and apply other measures that facilitate the growth of their small enterprises as a strategy for alleviating poverty.