IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/8212.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Governance Indicators: Where Are We, Where Should We Be Going?

Author

Listed:
  • Kaufmann, Daniel
  • Kraay, Aart

Abstract

Progress in measuring governance is assessed using a simple framework that distinguishes between indicators that measure formal rules and indicators that measure the practical application or outcomes of these rules. The analysis calls attention to the strengths and weaknesses of both types of indicators as well as the complementarities between them. It distinguishes between the views of experts and the results of surveys and assesses the merits of aggregate as opposed to individual governance indicators. Some simple principles are identified to guide the use and refinement of existing governance indicators and the development of future indicators. These include transparently disclosing diversity of indicators and exploiting complementarities among them, submitting all indicators to rigorous public and academic scrutiny, and being realistic in expectations of future indicators.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart, 2008. "Governance Indicators: Where Are We, Where Should We Be Going?," MPRA Paper 8212, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:8212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/8212/1/MPRA_paper_8212.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jakob Svensson, 2005. "Eight Questions about Corruption," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 19-42, Summer.
    2. Knack, Stephen, 2006. "Measuring corruption in Eastern Europe and Central Asia : a critique of the cross-country indicators," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3968, The World Bank.
    3. Omar Azfar & Peter Murrell, 2009. "Identifying Reticent Respondents: Assessing the Quality of Survey Data on Corruption and Values," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(2), pages 387-411, January.
    4. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2005. "The Economic Effects of Constitutions," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661926, April.
    5. King, Gary & Wand, Jonathan, 2007. "Comparing Incomparable Survey Responses: Evaluating and Selecting Anchoring Vignettes," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 46-66, January.
    6. Charles P. Oman & Christiane Arndt, 2006. "Governance Indicators for Development," OECD Development Centre Policy Insights 33, OECD Publishing.
    7. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1999. "Aggregating governance indicators," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2195, The World Bank.
    8. Razafindrakoto, Mireille & Roubaud, François, 2010. "Are International Databases on Corruption Reliable? A Comparison of Expert Opinion Surveys and Household Surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1057-1069, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2007. "The worldwide governance indicators project : answering the critics," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4149, The World Bank.
    2. Michael Breen & Robert Gillanders & Gemma Mcnulty & Akisato Suzuki, 2017. "Gender and Corruption in Business," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(9), pages 1486-1501, September.
    3. Bartolini, David & Santolini, Raffaella, 2017. "Political institutions behind good governance," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 68-85.
    4. Rachel M. Gisselquist, 2013. "Evaluating Governance Indexes: Critical and Less Critical Questions," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-068, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Gisselquist, Rachel M., 2013. "Evaluating Governance Indexes: Critical and Less Critical Questions," WIDER Working Paper Series 068, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Bernard Gauthier & Frédéric Lesne, 2018. "Reported Corruption vs. Experience of Corruption in Public Procurement Contracts," Post-Print hal-01949498, HAL.
    7. Razafindrakoto, Mireille & Roubaud, François, 2010. "Are International Databases on Corruption Reliable? A Comparison of Expert Opinion Surveys and Household Surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1057-1069, August.
    8. Qu, Guangjun & Slagter, Bob & Sylwester, Kevin & Doiron, Kyle, 2019. "Explaining the standard errors of corruption perception indices," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 907-920.
    9. Nauro Campos & Francesco Giovannoni, 2007. "Lobbying, corruption and political influence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 1-21, April.
    10. Laura Langbein & Stephen Knack, 2010. "The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Six, One, or None?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(2), pages 350-370.
    11. Mehmet Pinar, 2015. "Measuring world governance: revisiting the institutions hypothesis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 747-778, March.
    12. José-Miguel Bello y Villarino, 2021. "Measuring Corruption: A Critical Analysis of the Existing Datasets and Their Suitability for Diachronic Transnational Research," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 157(2), pages 709-747, September.
    13. Staffan Andersson & Paul M. Heywood, 2009. "The Politics of Perception: Use and Abuse of Transparency International's Approach to Measuring Corruption," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 57(4), pages 746-767, December.
    14. Kannan Perumal, 2022. "Corruption Measurements: Caught Between Conceptualizing the Phenomenon and Promoting New Governance Agenda?," Vision, , vol. 26(1), pages 31-38, March.
    15. Massimo Buscema & Pier Luigi Sacco & Guido Ferilli, 2016. "Multidimensional Similarities at a Global Scale: An Approach to Mapping Open Society Orientations," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 1239-1258, September.
    16. Yan Leung Cheung & P. Raghavendra Rau & Aris Stouraitis, 2012. "How much do firms pay as bribes and what benefits do they get? Evidence from corruption cases worldwide," NBER Working Papers 17981, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Stefan Voigt, 2011. "Positive constitutional economics II—a survey of recent developments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 205-256, January.
    18. Eugen Dimant & Guglielmo Tosato, 2018. "Causes And Effects Of Corruption: What Has Past Decade'S Empirical Research Taught Us? A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 335-356, April.
    19. Dreher, Axel & Kotsogiannis, Christos & McCorriston, Steve, 2007. "Corruption around the world: Evidence from a structural model," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 443-466, September.
    20. Bastianin, Andrea & Castelnovo, Paolo & Florio, Massimo, 2018. "Evaluating regulatory reform of network industries: a survey of empirical models based on categorical proxies," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 115-128.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:8212. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.