Institutional Profiles Database

The "Institutional Profiles Database"

The Institutional Profiles Database 2009 presents a set of indicators on the institutional characteristics of 123 developed and developing countries covering 96% of the world population and 99% of the world GDP. The database covers a broad spectrum of institutional characteristics and goes beyond measuring governance. The nine institutional functions assessed by the IPD are:

  1. Political institutions
  2. Safety, Law and Order, Control of violence
  3. Functioning of Public administrations
  4. Free Operation of Markets
  5. Coordination of actors, Strategic vision, Innovation
  6. Security of transactions and contracts
  7. Market regulations, Social dialogue
  8. Openness to the outside world
  9. Social cohesion and mobility.


The database was built by researchers from the French Ministry for the Economy, Industry and Employment (MINEIE) and the French Development Agency (AFD) and was constructed from a world survey conducted with MINEIE and AFD agencies present in the countries covered in the database. The document ‘Institutional Profiles Database III - Presentation of the Institutional Profiles Database 2009 (IPD 2009)’ available on this website, presents the underlying assumptions, the analytical framework and the methodology used to prepare the data and to built IPD 2009. The University of Maastricht / Maastricht Graduate School of Governance (MGSOG) is actively involved in the scientific work on IPD 2009. IPD is part of the research programme Institutions, Governance and Long Term Growth of the AFD.

The purpose of the IPD project is to contribute to the measurement and analysis of the role institutions play in development, and to stimulate research in these areas.

IPD 2009 is presented in three versions: a full version that contains 367 variables and two reduced versions, containing 133 variables and 93 variables. Aggregation methodology is presented in the reference document.

IPD 2009 is the third edition of the Institutional Profiles Database. The first IPD survey was carried out in 2001 and covered 51 countries. The second survey was carried out in 2006 and extended the geographic coverage to 85 countries. Improvements in measuring countries institutional characteristics have been made for each edition of the IPD. Inter-temporal comparisons have to take into account the differences across the three editions. The IPD 2001-2006 database contains the common variables of these two datasets.

The entire databases and the aggregated versions of IPD 2009 dataset are available free of charge after registration. Please use the following reference when citing the database:

Institutional Profiles Database (IPD)

Database users are invited to send AFD, CEPII and MGSoG copies of research papers and research output using the database (see e-mail address below). Only research given prior scientific approval will be granted a hyperlink reference on this website.

For all comments and questions on content, variable names and translations, please send an e-mail to:

ipd@afd.fr and/or  institutions@cepii.fr and/or ipd@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Disclaimer

The data provided and any research based on these data shall in no way be deemed to reflect the official positions or incur the responsibility of MINEIE, CEPII, AFD or UM/MGSoG. Furthermore, these bodies hereby disclaim any and all liability for the consequences of any anomalies or errors remaining in the database.
These indicators are made available for scientific research purposes, to explore the relations between Institutions and Development. They are not intended for operational uses (e.g. to allocate resources), either in terms of level or growth. Attempts to make use of the indicators individually would be statistically and conceptually problematic: the dataset should be analysed as a whole in a multidimensional approach for a scientific, not an operational, purpose. This point is broadly documented and confirmed by the OECD study conducted by Christiane Arndt and Charles Oman: Uses and Abuses of Governance Indicators – 2006 – Development Centre.