Does institutional quality matter in fostering social progress: A cross national examination

Abstract

The first Social Progress Index (SPI) report was released in 2013; a handful of studies examined the determinants of social progress at country level as an instrument in evaluating nation’s prosperity. This study focuses on determining the relationship between institutional quality measured by the World Governance Index (WGI) and social progress measured (SPI).The results are based on the secondary data from 107 countries over a four year period (2014-2017), after controlling Gross Domestic Product per capita, innovativeness and trustworthiness. The result was in favor of the fixed effect model. The findings illustrate that institutional quality was consistently significant in fostering social progress. This study is unique in that, it is the first that examined the role of formal institutional quality in promoting social progress at country level by using SPI as a measurement of social progress.