Professor Ranks 10 Best Governments

Coinciding with yesterday's elections, a group of researchers from Harvard and the University of Chicago recently released a report that seeks to answer what makes a government good.

The report was prepared for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Harvard economics professors Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-De-Silanes and Andrei Shleifer and a professor at the University of Chicago, Robert Vishny. It is based on data compiled from more than 150 countries.

Rafael La Porta is an assistant professor of Economics, and Andrei Shleifer is a professor of economics, both in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

"Our ultimate goal is to understand how some countries came to have good governments," said Lopez-De-Silanes, assistant professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government.

The study reports that good governments are usually found in countries that are wealthier, Protestant and ethnically homogeneous.

It defines good governments as those whose people tend to trust their fellow citizens and whose laws are not derived from the religiously inspired French Napoleonic Code.

The report included a ranking of the ten best and the ten worst governments in the world. The top three countries in terms of "quality of government," according to the report, are New Zealand, Switzerland and Norway. The United States came in seventh.

The worst three countries are Zaire, Sierra Leone and Sudan.

"The ranking itself...aggregates good quality across several measures that we look at," Lopez-De-Silanes said.

The criteria used to determine the rankings fell into four categories: governmental interference with the private sector, efficiency, provision of public goods and political freedom.

Lopez-De-Silanes maintained the study was "fair" to all governments, despite the fact that nine of the top ten countries are located in Europe or North America and seven of the ten worst countries are African nations.

"The final lesson of the research," Lopez-De-Silanes said, "is that economic and cultural factors do not doom a country to have bad government forever."

Other Harvard professors said they were skeptical about the report's completeness.

"There is no mention there of international effects," said Associate Professor Edward P. Schwartz, a member of the government department who specializes in political and judicial institutions.

"A country might very well be better off if it has friendly, peaceful relations with its neighbors," Schwartz said. "Or, having relatively few neighbors to contend with might be helpful."

Lopez-De-Silanes said he has heard from many people around the world since the report's release Sunday.

"As for the impact this has had, we have already received calls from many countries--France, Canada, New Zealand, etc.," Lopez-De-Silanes said

"There is no mention there of international effects," said Associate Professor Edward P. Schwartz, a member of the government department who specializes in political and judicial institutions.

"A country might very well be better off if it has friendly, peaceful relations with its neighbors," Schwartz said. "Or, having relatively few neighbors to contend with might be helpful."

Lopez-De-Silanes said he has heard from many people around the world since the report's release Sunday.

"As for the impact this has had, we have already received calls from many countries--France, Canada, New Zealand, etc.," Lopez-De-Silanes said