IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/10952.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Worldwide Governance Indicators : Methodology and 2024 Update

Author

Listed:
  • Kaufmann,Daniel
  • Aart C. Kraay

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the data sources and aggregation methodology for the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI). The WGI report six aggregate governance indicators measuring Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption in a sample of 214 economies over the period 1996–2023. The aggregate indicators combine information from 35 different existing data sources, capturing subjective perceptions of the quality of various dimensions of governance reported by experts and survey respondents worldwide. The paper briefly discusses how to use reported margins of error when interpreting cross-country and over-time differences in the aggregate indicators. The paper also updates and extends earlier analysis on three key issues relating to the WGI methodology: (a) the effect of correlated perception errors, (b) the robustness of the aggregate indicators to alternative weighting schemes, and (c) the existence on trends in global averages of governance.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaufmann,Daniel & Aart C. Kraay, 2024. "The Worldwide Governance Indicators : Methodology and 2024 Update," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10952, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10952
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099005210162424110/pdf/IDU-7c6f0b9e-f0c2-4b1d-b30d-76c4644af69e.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Kaufmann & Aart Kraay, 2008. "Governance Indicators: Where Are We, Where Should We Be Going?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 23(1), pages 1-30, January.
    2. Michael Carlos Best & Anne Brockmeyer & Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Johannes Spinnewijn & Mazhar Waseem, 2015. "Production versus Revenue Efficiency with Limited Tax Capacity: Theory and Evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(6), pages 1311-1355.
    3. Jørgen Juel Andersen & Niels Johannesen & Bob Rijkers, 2022. "Elite Capture of Foreign Aid: Evidence from Offshore Bank Accounts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(2), pages 388-425.
    4. Cyril Chalendard & Ana M Fernandes & Gael Raballand & Bob Rijkers, 2023. "Corruption in Customs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(1), pages 575-636.
    5. Standaert, Samuel, 2015. "Divining the level of corruption: A Bayesian state-space approach," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 782-803.
    6. Miriam A. Golden & Lucio Picci, 2005. "Proposal For A New Measure Of Corruption, Illustrated With Italian Data," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 37-75, March.
    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. Andreas R. Kostøl & Andreas S. Myhre, 2021. "Labor Supply Responses to Learning the Tax and Benefit Schedule," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(11), pages 3733-3766, November.
    2. Florin Alexandru Roman & Monica Violeta Achim & Robert W. McGee, 2023. "Fraud related to EU funds. The case of Romania," Journal of Financial Studies, Institute of Financial Studies, vol. 14(8), pages 120-142, May.
    3. Aghion, Philippe & Akcigit, Ufuk & Lequien, Matthieu & Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2017. "Tax simplicity and heterogeneous learning," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86613, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Niels Johannesen & Thomas Tørsløv & Ludvig Wier, 2016. "Are less developed countries more exposed to multinational tax avoidance? Method and evidence from micro-data," WIDER Working Paper Series 010, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Bachas, Pierre & Fattal Jaef, Roberto N. & Jensen, Anders, 2019. "Size-dependent tax enforcement and compliance: Global evidence and aggregate implications," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 203-222.
    6. Di Guardo, Maria Chiara & Marrocu, Emanuela & Paci, Raffaele, 2016. "The effect of local corruption on ownership strategy in cross-border mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4225-4241.
    7. Mireille Razafindrakoto & François Roubaud & Jean-Michel Wachsberger, 2013. "Institutions, gouvernance et croissance de long terme à Madagascar : l'enigme et le paradoxe," Working Papers DT/2013/13, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    8. Federico Boffa & Amedeo Piolatto & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2016. "Political Centralization and Government Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 381-422.
    9. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Emmanuel Saez, 2016. "Why Can Modern Governments Tax So Much? An Agency Model of Firms as Fiscal Intermediaries," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(330), pages 219-246, April.
    10. Godin, M. & Hindriks, J., 2015. "A Review of Critical Issues on Tax Design and Tax Administration in a Global Economy and Developing Countries," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015028, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    11. Andrea Lasagni & Annamaria Nifo & Gaetano Vecchione, 2015. "Firm Productivity And Institutional Quality: Evidence From Italian Industry," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(5), pages 774-800, November.
    12. Arbex, Marcelo Aarestru & Mattos, Enlinson, 2020. "Limited tax capacity and the optimal taxation of firms," Textos para discussão 539, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    13. Gebka, Bartosz & Kanungo, Rama Prasad & Wildman, John, 2024. "The transition from COVID-19 infections to deaths: Do governance quality and corruption affect it?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 235-253.
    14. Cristian Barra & Nazzareno Ruggiero, 2022. "On the impact of knowledge and institutional spillovers on RIS efficiency. Evidence from Italian regional level," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 702-752, June.
    15. R. Lardeux, 2018. "Who Understands The French Income Tax? Bunching Where Tax Liabilities Start," Documents de Travail de l'Insee - INSEE Working Papers g2018-04, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques.
    16. Lidia Mannarino & Valeria Pupo & Fernanda Ricotta, 2016. "Family Firms and Productivity: The Role of Institutional Quality," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(10), pages 343-343, September.
    17. Merima Ali & Abdulaziz B. Shifa & Abebe Shimeles & Firew Woldeyes, 2021. "Building Fiscal Capacity in Developing Countries: Evidence on the Role of Information Technology," National Tax Journal, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(3), pages 591-620.
    18. Navaz Naghavi & Muhammad Shujaat Mubarik & Devinder Kaur, 2018. "Financial Liberalization And Stock Market Efficiency: Measuring The Threshold Effects Of Governance," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(04), pages 1-24, December.
    19. Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2018. "Assessing well-being in European regions. Does government quality matter?," Working Papers 2018/06, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    20. Dina Pomeranz & José Vila-Belda, 2019. "Taking State-Capacity Research to the Field: Insights from Collaborations with Tax Authorities," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 755-781, August.

    More about this item

    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:wbk:wbrwps:10952. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.