It might seem obvious discovering an asset such as oil or copper would be wonderful news for the country making the find. Yet the opposite is often true. The windfall can bring poverty, civil strife, corruption, inequality, slower growth and undemocratic practices. The phenomenon is known as the...

The use of governance indicators, as applied to developing countries, has grown spectacularly in recent years. Following the maxim that you cannot manage what you cannot measure, international investors and official development aid agencies, together with academics and the media, have turned...