How to Measure the Rule of Law

Stefan Voigt

No 200938, MAGKS Papers on Economics from Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung)

Abstract: I argue that the rule of law consists of many dimensions and that much information is lost when variables proxying for these dimensions are simply aggregated. I draw on the most important innovations from various legal traditions to propose a concept of the rule of law likely to find general support. To make the concept measurable, an ideal approach is contrasted with a pragmatic one. The pragmatic approach consists of eight different dimensions. I show that the bivariate correlations between them are usually very low, evidence that more fine-grained indicators of the rule of law, rather than a single hard-to-interpret one, are necessary for its measurement. The paper presents a list of desirable variables that could improve the measurement of various aspects of the rule of law.

Keywords: Rule of Law; Institutions; Governance; Measurement; Formal vs. Informal Institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 H11 K00 O17 O43 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2009
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-dev, nep-law, nep-pol, nep-reg and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: How to Measure the Rule of Law (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mar:magkse:200938

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