Governance indicators: from theory to practice

Abstract

Measuring governance is a difficult if not impossible task. Indeed, a growing literature is arguing that existing governance indicator are inadequate to properly approach the job. Nevertheless, gauging governance quality is an important task that needs to be undertaken with care.

This article explains how the IADB is approaching this task by combining quantitative data, and qualitative and political economy analysis. Although the methodology does not provide an exact measure of governance it greatly helps the political dialogue on the subject matter and the definition of a a course of action to improve governance.