Well-functioning institutions matter for economic development. In order to operate effectively, public institutions must also inspire confidence in those they serve. The authors use data from the Gallup World Poll, a unique and very large global household survey, to document a quantitatively...

A potential concern with survey-based data on corruption is that respondents may not be fully candid in their responses to sensitive questions. If reticent respondents are less likely to admit to involvement in corrupt acts, and if the proportion of reticent respondents varies across groups of...

Thomas (2009) rejette les indicateurs mondiaux de gouvernance (IMG) en considérant qu′ils constituent une hypothèse élaborée mais non confirmée en raison de l′échec à démontrer la « validité de construit » de ces indicateurs. Nous soutenons que la « validité de construit »...

This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism,...

Over the past decade the United States has experienced widening current account deficits and a steady deterioration of its net foreign asset position. During the second half of the 1990s, this deterioration was fueled by foreign investment in a booming U.S. stock market. During the first half of...

In a cross-section of more than 150 countries, the authors provide new empirical evidence of a strong causal relationship from better governance to better development outcomes. They base their analysis on a new database containing more than 300 governance indicators compiled from a variety of...

The authors construct aggregate governance indicators for six dimensions of governance, covering 175 countries in 2000-01. They apply the methodology developed in Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobaton ("Aggregating Governance Indicators", Policy Research Working Paper 2195, and"Governance Matters",...

China in the past few years has emerged as a net foreign creditor on the international scene with net foreign assets slightly greater than zero percent of wealth. This is surprising given that China is a relatively poor country with a capital-labor ratio about one-fifth the world average and...

This paper reports on the latest update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2007: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism,...