IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/4669.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The worldwide governance indicators and tautology : causally related separable concepts, indicators of a common cause, or both ?

Author

Listed:
  • Langbein, Laura
  • Knack, Stephen

Abstract

Aggregate indexes of the quality of governance, covering large samples of countries, are widely used in research and in aid policy. Few studies examine the validity of these indexes, however. This paper partially fills this gap by examining empirically the dimensionality of the Worldwide Governance Indicators. The six indexes purportedly measure distinct concepts of control of corruption, rule of law, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, political stability, and voice and accountability. Using standard statistical techniques for testing measurement validity, the analysis concludes that the six indexes do not discriminate usefully among different aspects of governance. Rather, each of the indexes merely reflects perceptions of the quality of governance more broadly. An implication of the findings is that the Worldwide Governance Indicator indexes are frequently misused in research and policy applications, where it is commonly assumed that the indexes provide distinct measures of different aspects of the quality of governance. A further implication is that Transparency International's even more widely-known aggregate index similarly reflects perceptions not only of corruption, as intended, but of the quality of governance more broadly.

Suggested Citation

  • Langbein, Laura & Knack, Stephen, 2008. "The worldwide governance indicators and tautology : causally related separable concepts, indicators of a common cause, or both ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4669, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4669
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/07/14/000158349_20080714131502/Rendered/PDF/WPS4669.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Kaufmann & Aart Kraay, 2002. "Growth without Governance," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2002), pages 169-230, August.
    2. Daniel Lederman & Norman V. Loayza & Rodrigo R. Soares, 2005. "Accountability And Corruption: Political Institutions Matter," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 1-35, March.
    3. Daniel Kaufmann & Frannie Leautier & Massimo Mastruzzi, 2004. "Governance and the City: An Empirical Exploration into Global Determinants of Urban Performance," Urban/Regional 0405004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Axel Borrmann & Matthias Busse & Silke Neuhaus, 2006. "Institutional Quality and the Gains from Trade," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 345-368, August.
    5. repec:bla:ecopol:v:17:y:2005:i::p:1-35 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1999. "Aggregating governance indicators," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2195, The World Bank.
    7. William Easterly & Jozef Ritzen & Michael Woolcock, 2006. "Social Cohesion, Institutions, And Growth," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 103-120, July.
    8. Margit Tavits, 2007. "Clarity of Responsibility and Corruption," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 218-229, January.
    9. Roumeen Islam, 2006. "Does More Transparency Go Along With Better Governance?," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 121-167, July.
    10. Johnson, Simon & Kaufmann, Daniel & Zoido-Lobaton, Pablo, 1998. "Regulatory Discretion and the Unofficial Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 387-392, May.
    11. Richard Damania & Per Fredriksson & Muthukumara Mani, 2004. "The Persistence of Corruption and Regulatory Compliance Failures: Theory and Evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 363-390, February.
    12. Broadman, Harry G. & Recanatini, Francesca, 2000. "Seeds of corruption - Do market institutions matter?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2368, The World Bank.
    13. Fahim Al‐Marhubi, 2004. "The Determinants of Governance: A Cross‐Country Analysis," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(3), pages 394-406, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tao Kong, 2011. "Governance Quality and Economic Growth," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2011-537, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    2. Manolopoulos, Dimitris & Chatzopoulou, Erifili & Kottaridi, Constantina, 2018. "Resources, home institutional context and SMEs’ exporting: Direct relationships and contingency effects," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 993-1006.
    3. Stephen Knowles & P. Dorian Owen, 2010. "Which Institutions are Good for Your Health? The Deep Determinants of Comparative Cross-country Health Status," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 701-723.
    4. Kenny, Charles & Soreide, Tina, 2008. "Grand Corruption in Utilities," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4805, The World Bank.
    5. Gaygısız, Esma, 2013. "How are cultural dimensions and governance quality related to socioeconomic development?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 170-179.
    6. Anthony P Cannizzaro & Robert J Weiner, 2018. "State ownership and transparency in foreign direct investment," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 49(2), pages 172-195, February.
    7. Dawn L. Keig & Lance Eliot Brouthers & Victor B. Marshall, 2015. "Formal and Informal Corruption Environments and Multinational Enterprise Social Irresponsibility," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 89-116, January.
    8. Siddiqui, Danish Ahmed & Ahmed, Qazi Masood, 2013. "The effect of institutions on economic growth: A global analysis based on GMM dynamic panel estimation," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 18-33.

    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. 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.
    2. Henri Atangana ondoa, 2014. "The determinants of corporate corruption in Cameroon," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(2), pages 938-950.
    3. Rajul Awasthi & Nihal Bayraktar, 2015. "Can tax simplification help lower tax corruption?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 5(2), pages 297-330, December.
    4. Cong Minh Huynh & Vu Hong Thai Nguyen & Hoang Bao Nguyen & Phuc Canh Nguyen, 2020. "One-way effect or multiple-way causality: foreign direct investment, institutional quality and shadow economy?," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 219-239, February.
    5. Yashar Tarverdi, 2018. "Aspects of Governance and $$\hbox {CO}_2$$ CO 2 Emissions: A Non-linear Panel Data Analysis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 69(1), pages 167-194, January.
    6. Awasthi, Rajul & Bayraktar, Nihal, 2014. "Can tax simplification help lower tax corruption ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6988, The World Bank.
    7. Łukasz Goczek, 2007. "Przyczyny korupcji i skuteczność strategii antykorupcyjnych," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 4, pages 33-48.
    8. Ghulam Shabbir & Mumtaz Anwar, 2007. "Determinants of Corruption in Developing Countries," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 46(4), pages 751-764.
    9. Siddiqui, Danish Ahmed & Ahmed, Qazi Masood, 2013. "The effect of institutions on economic growth: A global analysis based on GMM dynamic panel estimation," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 18-33.
    10. Kodila Tedika, Oasis, 2012. "Empirical Survey on the Causes of the Corruption [Aperçu empirique sur les causes de la corruption]," MPRA Paper 41484, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Zeeshan Noor Siddiqui, 2017. "Understanding the Linkage among Public Procurement (PP), Corruption, and Tax Morale (TM) Through Agency Theory (AT): A Review," Business & Economic Review, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan, vol. 9(3), pages 258-288, September.
    12. Magnusson, Leandro M. & Tarverdi, Yashar, 2020. "Measuring governance: Why do errors matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    13. Marta Santagata & Enrico Ivaldi & Riccardo Soliani, 2019. "Development and Governance in the Ex-Soviet Union: An Empirical Inquiry," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 157-190, January.
    14. Amavilah, Voxi & Asongu, Simplice A. & Andrés, Antonio R., 2017. "Effects of globalization on peace and stability: Implications for governance and the knowledge economy of African countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 91-103.
    15. Bienvenido Ortega & Antonio Casquero & Jesús Sanjuán, 2016. "Corruption and Convergence in Human Development: Evidence from 69 Countries During 1990–2012," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 691-719, June.
    16. 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.
    17. Aisha Ismail & Kashif Rashid, 2014. "Time series analysis of the nexus among corruption, political instability and judicial inefficiency in Pakistan," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2757-2771, September.
    18. Desbordes, Rodolphe & Koop, Gary, 2016. "Should we care about the uncertainty around measures of political-economic development?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 752-763.
    19. D’Hernoncourt, Johanna & Méon, Pierre-Guillaume, 2012. "The not so dark side of trust: Does trust increase the size of the shadow economy?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 97-121.
    20. Michael Mitsopoulos & Theodore Pelagidis, 2017. "A model of constitutional design and corruption," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 67-90, August.

    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:4669. 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.