Worldwide Governance Indicator

The Worldwide Governance Indicator (WGI) project is the World Bank Group's latest foray into the growing field of empirical research and governance.  WGIs are research data sets that measure quality of governance based on data gathered from a number of survey institutes, think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, international organizations, and private sector firms.  Based on nearly 40 data sources produced by over 30 organizations worldwide, the project derives ratings on the quality of governance in over 200 countries. 
The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for 215 economies over the period 1996–2013, for six dimensions of governance:

• Voice and Accountability
• Political Stability and Absence of Violence
• Government Effectiveness
• Regulatory Quality
• Rule of Law
• Control of Corruption

These aggregate indicators combine the views of a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries.  They are based on 32 individual data sources produced by a variety of survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and private sector firms.

• Interactive data access
• Description of methodology
• Download full dataset (excel)

Recommended in the November issue of ALA's Choice