Matt Andrews of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard develops the argument that government performance needs to be judged in context. This implies making some variables exogenous in the `good government’ assessment methodology. Defining these contextual factors requires further work but others have research has shown that demography, natural resource, geographical and other endowments outside a government’s control affect both the trajectory and the pace of economic development. In addition, at any point in time, per capita income is a `given’ affecting opportunities for both public and private investment as well as and the size of the government budget and thus its ability to spend on health and education.  He illustrates the point by showing that if health outcomes (measured by infant mortality rates) are adjusted for national income per capita, the countries doing well (‘boxing above their income weight’, and below it) are rather different from the countries identified to be good or poor performers using conventional approaches. Work on this topic continues.

Read his paper here.