On average around the world, starting a business takes 7 procedures, 25 days and costs 32% of income per capita in fees. To operate and expand, the firm will need financing—from shareholders or from creditors. Raising money in the capital market is easier and less costly where minority shareholders feel protected from self-interested transactions by large shareholders. Good corporate governance rules can provide this kind of protection. But among the 189 economies covered by this article, 46 still have only very limited requirements for disclosing majority shareholders’ conflicts of interest—or none at all. In recent years, there has been remarkable progress in removing some of the biggest bureaucratic obstacles to private sector activity. Yet small and medium-size enterprises still are subject to burdensome regulations and vague rules that are unevenly applied and that impose inefficiencies on the enterprise sector. Learn more about the specific regulatory obstacles small and medium-size enterprises must navigate.