Browsing by Author "Charron, Nicholas"

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Building Quality of Government? International Organizations and Educational Performance in Africa
(2014-11) Bauhr, Monika; Charron, Nicholas; QoG Institute
Although international organizations are often seen as an important transformative power on the international arena, we know less about how and when they promote better domestic institutions. Using data on education outcomes in 53 African countries from 1994-2008, we show that IOs use several empirically distinct channels through which they influence domestic outcomes: conditionality, rankings and international integration. We find that integration and high international rankings have a positive impact on education outputs, while IOs have a negative influence when they use conditional aid. Our findings have implications both for the diffusion of the quality of government agenda, and for advancing our knowledge of IO power.
Careers, Connections and Corruption Risks in Europe
(2015-04) Charron, Nicholas; Dahlström, Carl; Fazekas, Mihály; Lapuente, Victor; QoG Institute
Why do officials in some countries favor entrenched contractors while others assign public con-tracts more impartially? According to the research, such variation responds to differences in political institutions, economic development and historical preconditions. This paper instead emphasizes the interplay between politics and bureaucracy. It suggests that corruption risks are minimized when the two groups involved in decision-making on public contracts—politicians and bureaucrats—have known different interests. This is institutionalized when politicians are accountable to the electorate, while bureaucrats are accountable to their peers, and not to politicians. We test this hypothesis with a novel experience-based measure of career incentives in the public sector— utilizing a survey with over 85,000 individuals in 212 European regions—and a new objective corruption-risk measure including over 1.4 million procurement contracts. Both show a remarkable sub-national variation across Europe. The study finds corruption risks significantly lower where bureaucrats’ careers do not depend on political connections.
Correlates of Corruption in India: Analysis and Evidence from the States
(2009-06) Charron, Nicholas; QoG Institute
Several leading indicators of corruption point to a serious problem in India on whole. Yet what explains the substantial variance of corruption levels perceived and experienced by citizens across Indian states? Surprisingly little research in the field has addressed this important question. This analysis elucidates a number of relevant and testable hypotheses from the growing literature on the determinants of corruption and applies them to the case of the Indian states. The estimates of the empirical models show that the level of development – measured both in economic and education terms – and the level of fiscal decentralization are significant and negatively related with levels of corruption. Factors such as income inequality, religious fractionalization, media exposure and whether a state has a bicameral or a unicameral legislature are statistically insignificant.
Does Democracy Produce Quality of Government?
(2009-01) Charron, Nicholas; Lapuente, Victor; QoG Institute
This paper analyzes the effects of political regimes over state capacity or the quality of government (QoG): do democratic states perform better than authoritarian ones? Previous studies on this puzzle point to a nonlinear relationship between democracy and government quality. We argue that QoG is a function of both forces of supply (leaders which have the power to make reforms) and demand (citizens’ desire for mid-to-long term investments over short term needs), the latter of which is a function of economic development. In democratic states, leaders have stronger incentives to improve QoG after a certain degree of wealth is reached, while in poorer countries they have little incentive for long-term bureaucratic investments. Thus we predict that the relationship between democracy and QoG is conditional, based on economic development. With over 125 countries in our sample, we test our hypothesis using time series, panel data and spatial models and find strong empirical support for our claim.
Exploring the Impact of Foreign Aid on Corruption: Has the 'Anti-Corruption' Aid been Effective?
(2009-12) Charron, Nicholas; QoG Institute
Though many studies have referred to an ‘anti-corruption movement’ beginning in the 1990’s by major international organizations, none has empirically tested its effectiveness on corruption. The data show that from 1997 on, the impact of multilateral aid is strongly and robustly associated with lower corruption levels, while bilateral aid is shown to be an insignificant determinant. An increase in any ODA pre-1997 is associated with higher levels of corruption or has no impact at all. Using panel data from 1986-2006, this study reveals a more nuanced relationship between ODA and corruption than in previous studies and demonstrates that when disaggregating the time periods, there are sensitive temporal effects of ODA’s effect on corruption overlooked by earlier studies, and provides initial evidence of the effectiveness of the international organization (IO), anti-corruption movement in the developing world.
From Åland to Ankara: European Quality of Government Index. 2013 Data, Sensitivity Analysis and Final Results
(2013-07) Charron, Nicholas; QoG Institute
This paper presents the latest version of the European Quality of Government Index (‘EQI’). The data builds on a previously published data from 2010 (Charron, Lapuente and Rothstein 2013; Charron, Dijkstra and Lapuente 2013). Based on the largest regionally-focused survey to date, collected in the spring of 2013, the EQI 2013 is draws on over 84,000 respondents in 212 NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 regions in 24 countries. Together with national estimates from the World Bank Governance Indicators (Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi 2009), we report data on Quality of Government (‘QoG’) for all EU 28 countries, Turkey and Serbia, for a total of 236 political units. In addition, we present survey data for 6 regions in Ukraine. The QoG questions are aimed at capturing average citizens’ perceptions and experiences with corruption, and the extent to which they rate their public services as impartial and of good quality.
Mapping Quality of Government in the European Union: A Study of National and Sub-National Variation
(2010-12) Charron, Nicholas; Dijkstra, Lewis; Lapuente, Victor; QoG Institute
This study maps-out the variation in quality of government (‘QoG’ - e.g. low levels or corruption, protection of the rule of law, government effectiveness and accountability) for the national and regional level in the 27 EU countries. We begin with a national level assessment of QoG in the EU, elucidating the three significantly different cluster groupings of states that emerge using existing data from the World Bank. We then present a novel sub-national-level data for 172 EU regions based on a survey of 34,000 residents across 18 countries, which constitutes the largest multi-country survey on QoG at the regional level to date. We combine the two measures to conduct a large multilevel assessment of QoG in Europe. The paper shows, first, that there are notable differences in the level of quality of government across EU regions; second, that those differences, despite being inherently difficult to capture, can be measured with sufficient accuracy and are resistant to the most stringent robustness checks available; third, that those differences in quality of government are highly correlated with the available indicators of differences in socio-economic development of EU regions.
Measuring Meritocracy in the Public Sector in Europe: a New National and Sub-National Indicator
(2015) Charron, Nicholas; Dahlström, Carl; Lapuente, Victor; QoG Institute
No Law without a State
(2010-05) Charron, Nicholas; Dahlström, Carl; Lapuente, Victor; QoG Institute
There is a large and growing interest in the prevailing cross-country differences many well-functioning institutions, such as judicial independence and high quality laws, and desirable social outcomes, such as a low degree of corruption and high economic growth. Influential scholars have claimed that these cross-country differences to a large extent are explained by a country’s legal origin (the common law and civil law tradition). It is claimed that through mechanisms of a stronger legal protection of outside investors and less state intervention, common law countries have developed more prosperous economically and socially. This paper proposes an alternative interpretation of the cross-country differences observed. Building on scholarly studies of state formation processes, the basic proposition of this paper is that state formation decisively affects the character of the state infrastructure to be either patrimonial or bureaucratic, which in turn affects institutions and social outcomes. This argument is tested empirically on a set of 31 OECD countries. It is shown that the state infrastructure is indeed more influential than the legal traditions on a set of institutional variables (formalism, judicial independence, regulation of entry and case law) as well as on a set of social outcomes (corruption, rule of law, and property rights).
Party System, Electoral Systems and Constraints on Corruption
(2010-12) Charron, Nicholas; QoG Institute
This article explores the relationship between the party system, electoral formula and corruption. Previous research has focused on the various incentives for political actors to monitor, or engage in corruption based on variations in the electoral formula. However, the electoral formal has mainly served as a proxy for the party system – whether multiparty or two-party. In this analysis, I test directly the relationship between party systems and corruption and in addition, add a degree of nuance to the established line of thinking within this literature. I argue that two-party systems in countries with predominantly single-member district (SMD) electoral formulas will demonstrate lower corruption on average than multiparty systems in SMD countries. However, I argue that this effect does not play out in countries with proportional representation (PR). I test this hypothesis on 70 democratic and semi-democratic countries from 1987-2006 and find strong empirical support for the claim that multipartism in SMD countries is associated with higher levels of corruption, while the party system’s relationship with corruption plays no role in PR countries.
Power Sharing, Ethnolinguistic Fractionalization and Government Quality
(2007-12) Charron, Nicholas; QoG Institute
Do power sharing institutions such as federalism and proportional representation (P.R.) mitigate the potentially negative effects of ethno-linguistic fractionalization on quality of government? Numerous empirical studies have shown the negative effects of ethno and linguistic heterogeneity on indicators of government quality, such as corruption, bureaucratic impartiality, and institutionalized democracy. Moreover, many studies have examined the effects of various political institutions, such as federalism and electoral system on government performance and corruption and found mixed results. Yet this study seeks to appropriately join the two sets of empirical studies. Building on Lijphart’s (1984) consociational theory of power sharing institutions, I seeks to empirically test the effectiveness of vertical (federalism) and horizontal (P.R.) power sharing in both homogenous and heterogeneous states using a variety of government quality indicators for robustness and generalizability. I employ a sample of over 120 states from 1993-2004 and use a variety of empirical methods and data to test the notion that power-sharing improves government quality when heterogeneity is high. The empirical results demonstrate that while differences in government quality are minimal when comparing federal and unitary states at less fractionalized levels, the institution of federalism proves extremely effective in producing significantly higher scores of government quality in highly fractionalized societies for almost every indicator using a number of multiple data sources. As for horizontal power sharing, while P.R. states report better government scores than countries which employ a method of plurality, this difference is negligible in cases of high fractionalization when controlling for federalism. The findings strongly support one of Lijphart’s claims to the effectiveness of federalism in providing better government quality for diverse populations than those of centralized constitutions.
Quality of Government in EU Regions: Spatial and Temporal Patterns
(2018-02) Charron, Nicholas; Lapuente, Victor; QoG Institute
A wave of recent cross-national research has pointed to the positive consequences for countries with high levels of ‘quality of government’ (QoG), broadly defined, such as corruption, impartiality, and quality of public services (Mauro 2004; Norris 2012; Holmberg et al 2009). Yet the question of how QoG varies at the sub-national level is still widely overlooked. To address it, we present the third round of data from the regional ‘European Quality of Government’ (EQI) survey (Charron, Dijkstra and Lapuente 2014; Charron, Lapuente and Rothstein 2013), collected in 2017 and built upon the opinions of 78.000 respondents from 202 regions from 21 European countries. The data provides several contributions to the literature. First, while the majority of QoG-type indices rely on expert assessments, the EQI relies on the assessments of citizens, who are the on-the-ground consumers of public services. Second, the data begins to show trends on QoG variation over time, as well as across European regions. Consequently, this data is the most comprehensive sub-national data to date; mapping of QoG within and across EU countries over the past decade. Building on previous rounds of data collected in 2010 and 2013, the 2017 EQI, which is published free for scholarly use, the EQI builds on both perceptions and experiences of citizens in public service areas such as health care, education, and law enforcement. This paper presents the final results of the survey, sensitivity analyses and checks for external and internal validity, as well as the preliminary that we detect across European regions.
Social Trust, Quality of Government and Ethnic Diversity: An Empirical Analysis of 206 Regions of Europe
(2014-12) Charron, Nicholas; Rothstein, Bo; QoG Institute
What factors lead to greater levels of generalized trust in society? The research field has established four channels through which it is commonly argued trust is affected at the macro level—economic inequality, civic participation, ethnic heterogeneity, and institutional quality. However, the quanti-tative field has focused overwhelmingly at the national level of analysis, mostly ignoring sub-national variation in trust, or focusing on single countries. We fill that gap in this study, which offers the largest and most comprehensive sub-national assessment of this salient question to date, including 206 regions in 24 European countries using data from an original survey of over 85,000 respondents conducted in 2013. Upon mapping national and regional levels of social trust based on our novel data, we find strong variation in levels of generalized trust within many countries, a phe-nomenon that has been often overlooked by national-level studies. We use a number of statistical estimations to assess the strength of the four channels through which trust can be enhanced or eroded. We find strong and robust evidence that institutional quality—measured as a public sector that allocates services impartially and without corruption—is the strongest determinant of regional variations in trust within countries, while economic inequality, civic participation and ethnic heterogeneity are not significant factors in explaining variations in trust patterns.
Sub-national Quality of Government in EU Member States: Presenting the 2021 European Quality of Government Index and its relationship with Covid-19 indicators
(2021-04) Charron, Nicholas; Lapuente, Victor; Bauhr, Monika; The Quality of Government institute
The 2021 European Quality of Government Index (the EQI) is the largest survey ever undertaken to meas-ure perceptions of quality of government, collecting the opinions of over 129,000 respondents in a total of 208 NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 regions in all EU 27 member states. This paper highlights some of its main results and compares the results with previous rounds of the survey. The survey is not only unique in size, it is also allows for new insights into the intricate link between government institutions, health policy and crisis man-agement, since it has been conducted in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. In a time of important chal-lenges, we find an overall increase in the perceived quality of government of European regions. However, the geography of QoG is slowly shifting, with many regions in Eastern Europe now surpassing regions in Southern Europe. We also see a drop in most regions in Poland and Hungary, whose response to the pan-demic has involved important infringement of democratic rights and institutions. Such drops cause concern for future crises management and beyond. We find that regional level corruption is closely linked to the extent to which citizens’ worry about the effects of the pandemic.
Sub-national Quality of Government in EU Member States: Presenting the 2021 European Quality of Government Index and its relationship with Covid-19 indicators
(2021-04) Charron, Nicholas; Lapuente, Victor; Bauhr, Monika; QoG The Quality of Government Institute
The 2021 European Quality of Government Index (the EQI) is the largest survey ever undertaken to measure perceptions of quality of government, collecting the opinions of over 129,000 respondents in a total of 208 NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 regions in all EU 27 member states. This paper highlights some of its main results and compares the results with previous rounds of the survey. The survey is not only unique in size, it is also allows for new insights into the intricate link between government institutions, health policy and crisis management, since it has been conducted in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. In a time of important challenges, we find an overall increase in the perceived quality of government of European regions. However, the geography of QoG is slowly shifting, with many regions in Eastern Europe now surpassing regions in Southern Europe. We also see a drop in most regions in Poland and Hungary, whose response to the pandemic has involved important infringement of democratic rights and institutions. Such drops cause concern for future crises management and beyond. We find that regional level corruption is closely linked to the extent to which citizens’ worry about the effects of the pandemic.
The Geography of Quality of Government in Europe. Subnational variations in the 2024 European Quality of Government Index and Comparisons with Previous Rounds
(2024-02) Charron, Nicholas; Lapuente, Victor; Bauhr, Monika; The Quality of Government Institute (QoG)
The 2024 European Quality of Government Index (EQI) collects the opinions of 135,227 respondents in a total of 210 NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 regions in all EU 27 member state countries. This paper, first, presents the 2024 data and highlights some of the main results of this effort to understand citizens’ perceptions, and personal experiences, of regional quality of government. Second, it compares the findings with the previous four rounds of the survey (starting in 2010), highlighting both the regions that are improving and those that show a declining trend in their quality of government. Third, the paper discusses the changes made to round 5 and other trends in the data over time, paying special attention to the comparison of EU citizens’ perceptions and experiences of government before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Compared to the improvements in corruption levels recorded in the 2021 study, we find that corruption levels have bounced back to more normal levels in post pandemic Europe.
The Impact of Socio-Political Integration and Press Freedom on Corruption in Developing Countries
(2008-03) Charron, Nicholas; QoG Institute
Do domestic institutions filter the effects of international openness on levels of government corruption? The analyses in this study demonstrate a more nuanced understanding of a previously understood phenomenon — that while openness has a negative relationship with corruption, sometimes this relationship is substantially influenced by the domestic context, a relationship that has been underdeveloped by previous empirical studies. However, as opposed to mainly economic factors of openness such as levels of trade or capital freedom, I highlight another salient type of globalization — social and political integration. Focusing exclusively on a sample of over 90 developing countries, I find that on the effect of openness on corruption is conditioned by domestic institutions. Namely, I examine the level of press freedoms in a country as an intervening variable. The empirical evidence suggests that while freedom of the press is less important for political openness to have a significant impact in combating corruption, a free press is essential for social openness to effect negatively government corruption.
The Wealth of Regions: Government Quality and Entrepreneurship in Europe
(2012-10) Charron, Nicholas; Lapuente, Victor; Nistotskaya, Marina; QoG Institute
This paper argues that government quality – operationalized as the ability of government to treat all their citizens in an impartial way – levels the ‘playing field’ for economic agents with and without connections to politicians and administrators in government, therefore encouraging entrepreneurial minded individuals to start or develop their business. Based on a unique data set on the quality of government in 172 regions of 18 European countries, the paper shows that regions with more impartial governments have significantly more small and medium-sized firms. It is also shown that quality of government is a determinant of the spatial distribution of entrepreneurship within countries. Under partial governments entrepreneurs face incentives to create and maintain special relations with power holders and therefore to be closer to the source of privileges and locate their activities around the national capitals, where the most relevant political connections rest.
Trust, Regulation and Redistribution
(2019-05) Charron, Nicholas; Harring, Niklas; Lapuente, Victor; QoG Institute
For many social scientists government intervention is linked to low levels of social trust and corruption, while, on the contrary, for others government intervention is associated with high trust and low corruption. We aim to reconcile these contrasting findings by distinguishing the opposing effects of trust over two alternative types of government intervention: regulation and redistribution. We argue that low-trust individuals demand more governmental regulation (H1) but less government redistribution (H2). And the effects of trust over policy preferences are conditional on the quality of institutions. The higher the level of quality of government in a particular region, the more hightrusting individuals will like government redistribution and will dislike government regulation that restricts the operations of free markets (H3). We test these hypotheses with data from the latest round of the European Quality of Government Index survey, which covers 77,000 individuals from 185 regions of 21 EU Member States.
Uncooperative Society, Uncooperative Politics or Both? How Trust, Polarization and Populism Explain Excess Mortality for COVID-19 across European regions
(2020-12) Charron, Nicholas; Lapuente, Victor; Rodriguez-Pose, Andrés; The QoG institute
Why have some territories performed better than others in the fight against COVID-19? This paper uses a novel dataset on excess mortality, trust and political polarization for 153 European regions to explore the role of social and political divisions in the remarkable regional differences in excess mortality during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we argue that it is not only levels, but also variations in trust among citizens – in particular, between government supporters and non-supporters – what matters for understanding why people in some regions have adopted more pro-healthy behaviour. Second, we hypothesize that the ideological positioning and polarization of such positioning among political parties is also linked to higher mortality, for it facilitates taking government measures aimed at satisfying core constituencies (e.g. business interests) to the detriment of building wide political consensus to undertake unpopular yet necessary measures. Overall, we find that mass polarization also played a significant role. When the divide in political trust between supporters and opponents of incumbent governments within societies is high, we observe consistently higher COVID-19-related excess mortality deaths during the first wave of the pandemic. We also find that regions with a political elite less supportive of European integration are regions where excess deaths have been significantly higher.