The QoG EQI Data (2010 & 2013)

The QoG Institute is an independent research institute within the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. Overall 30 researchers conduct and promote research on the causes, consequences and nature of Good Governance and the Quality of Government - that is, trustworthy, reliable, impartial, uncorrupted and competent government institutions. The main objective of our research is to address the theoretical and empirical problem of how political institutions of high quality can be created and maintained. A second objective is to study the effects of Quality of Government on a number of policy areas, such as health, the environment, social policy, and poverty. The QoG EU EQI Data is the result of a survey of corruption and governance at the regional level within the EU and one of the most complete quantitative estimate of QoG to date. The study was conducted during 2010 as a part of the EU Commission’s tri-annual “Cohesion Report” and during 2013 as part of ANTICORRP. It covers all 28 member states and 172 NUTS 1 and NUTS 2 regions in 2010, while the 2013 study included two more (at that point EU candidate countries): Serbia and Turkey as well as some regions in Ukraine. The number of NUTS-1 and NUTS-2 regions became 206 then. In total the survey was answered by 34 000 respondents in 2010 and 85 000 respondents in 2013.. As a part of the study an index, that measures the corruption in the EU at the regional level, was constructed, EU QoG Index (EQI). The index is based on 16 variables of the survey. When using the 2010 EQI data please cite as follows: Charron, Nicholas, Lewis Dijkstra & Victor Lapuente. 2014. Regional Governance Matters: Quality of Government within European Union Member States, Regional Studies, 48 (1): 68-90. DOI:10.1080/00343404.2013.770141 Charron, Nicholas, Victor Lapuente and Bo Rothstein. 2013. ’Quality of Government and Corruption from a European Perspective: A Comparative Study of Good Governance in EU Regions’’. Edward Elgar Publishing. When using the 2013 EQI data please cite as follows: Charron, Nicholas, Lewis Dijkstra and Victor Lapuente. 2014. ‘Mapping the Regional Divide in Europe: A Measure for Assessing Quality of Government in 206 European Regions’. Social Indicators Research. DOI: 10.1007/s11205-014-0702-y. Purpose: The aim of EU EQI Data is to analyse corruption and governance at the regional level within the EU.