Quality of Government and Well-being: An Empirical Analysis of 158 European Regions

The aim of the study is twofold: on the one hand, it assesses the association between well-being and the quality of government, on the other it evaluates the impact exerted on the same well-being by the different components into which the quality of government can be broken down. The analysis is conducted at the regional level. A composite indicator derived from OECD data on regional well-being is used to assess its association with the quality of government. The latter is measured using the European Quality of Government Survey Index (EQI) data. The EQI breaks down the quality of government into three key elements: the impartiality of administration, the quality of services provided and the degree of corruption. The association between well-being and quality of government is verified considering, at first, the EQI index as a whole, being the product of the three different components, and then separately considering its key elements.The results confirmed the existence of a strong positive association between well-being and the overall quality of government, as between the former and the single components of the EQI index. Furthermore, the same association is observed when the assessment is made on the whole sample, but also when subsamples are made, considering the geographical macro-area to which the regions belong.