Thomas (2009) dismisses the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) as an 'elaborate and unsupported hypothesis' because of the failure to demonstrate the 'construct validity' of these indicators. We argue that 'construct validity' is not a useful tool to assess the merits of the WGI, and even if...

Standard economics uses a one-dimensional concept of motivation. It assumes that people are perfectly rational and are solely motivated in a selfish way. This essay argues that people differ in their preferences with respect to pro-social orientations, that preferences are plastic and...

Under appropriate conditions, all forms of decentralization can play important roles in broadening participation in political, economic and social activities in developing countries. Where it works effectively, decentralization helps alleviate the bottlenecks in decision making that are often...

To understand the process of bribery we need to integrate measures of individual behaviour and institutional attributes rather than rely exclusively on micro or macro-level measures. Indexes of corruption in national institutions cannot explain how individuals within a country differ in the...

Many variables in governance are measured with uncertainty. This paper addresses this problem, showing that interval variables are a suitable way to handle it, providing an application in corporate governance. We build two constructs, one for Investor protection and the other for Constraints on...

Scholars, policymakers, aid donors, and aid recipients acknowledge the importance of good governance for development. This understanding has spurred an intense interest in more refined, nuanced, and policy-relevant indicators of governance. In this paper we review progress to date in the area of...

Scholars, policymakers, aid donors, and aid recipients acknowledge the importance of good governance for development. This understanding has spurred an intense interest in more refined, nuanced, and policy-relevant indicators of governance. In this paper we review progress to date in the area of...

Understanding corruption is at the heart of treating the dysfunctionality of many countries' public sectors. Yet, most corruption research suffers from one common problem: There is no "objective" measure of public-sector corruption for a cross-section of countries. Most studies on the...