Measuring institutional quality in Italy

In this paper we illustrate the main features of the Institutional Quality Index (IQI) first presented in Nifo and Vecchione (2014) for 2004 and then extended for the whole period 2004-2008. IQI allows to measure institutional quality in Italian provinces, confirming the North-South divide even under this peculiar perspective. The construction of IQI starts from elementary indexes which are grouped into five dimensions, called: i) Voice and accountability, ii) Government effectiveness, iii) Regulatory quality, iv) Rule of law, v) Control and corruption. Afterwards, normalization, attribution of weights and aggregation of sub-indexes lead to a single-value indicator for institutional quality.