Countries by Regulatory Quality: Percentile Rank, Lower Bound of 90% Confidence Interval

Ranking 2023

Values shown in %.

Analysis

This metric reports the lower bound of the 90% confidence interval for each country's regulatory quality percentile rank. It reflects the conservative estimate of where a country truly sits in the global distribution of regulatory quality, accounting for measurement uncertainty. The indicator code is RQ.PER.RNK.LOWER, expressed as a percentage where higher values indicate better regulatory quality. According to the source: 'The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) are a research dataset summarizing the views on the quality of governance provided by a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries. Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, mo[nitored and replaced].' The dataset covers 205 countries, all with data from 2023, representing 100% recency coverage. All 205 data points are classified as official quality. No extreme outliers were identified using a 3-standard-deviation threshold.

The top of the ranking is concentrated among high-income economies in Western Europe, Oceania, and East Asia. Singapore ranks first at 99.53%, well ahead of second-placed Australia and Luxembourg, both at 92.92%. New Zealand follows at rank 4 with 92.45%, and Denmark sits fifth at 91.04%. The Scandinavian and Northern European cluster is prominent: Finland (rank 7, 90.09%), Sweden (rank 9, 87.74%), Switzerland (rank 10, 87.26%), and Norway (rank 12, 86.32%) all score above 86%. Estonia (rank 18, 83.49%) is the highest-ranked Eastern European country. The United States places 20th at 81.60%, tied with Lithuania.

The middle of the ranking includes a varied mix of upper-middle-income countries and smaller economies. Georgia ranks 34th at 70.28%, tied with Chile, Andorra, Monaco, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Indonesia ranks 65th at 51.41%, tied with Hungary, Peru, Romania, and Montenegro. China places 120th at 24.06%, just below Kenya at rank 119 (25.94%). A notable anomaly is that Macao SAR, China and Hong Kong SAR, China both rank 12th at 86.32%, scoring far above mainland China at 120th and 24.06%. Russia ranks 179th at 5.19%, and Belarus ranks 187th at 3.77%, among the lowest scores in Europe. At the very bottom, six countries score exactly 0.00%: Eritrea, North Korea, Libya, South Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Because this metric represents the lower bound of a confidence interval rather than a point estimate, it systematically understates perceived regulatory quality relative to the midpoint estimate, and countries with greater measurement uncertainty will be penalized more severely in their lower-bound score. Rankings reflect perceptions aggregated from enterprise, citizen, and expert surveys, not direct measurement of regulatory outcomes or legal texts. Countries with fewer survey respondents may face wider confidence intervals and lower lower-bound scores regardless of actual governance quality. Tied ranks are common throughout the dataset, reflecting the discrete nature of the underlying percentile scoring. The data year is 2023, and year-over-year volatility averages 11.3%, indicating that rankings can shift meaningfully between periods.

Methodology

Metric: Regulatory Quality Percentile Rank, Lower Bound of 90% Confidence Interval. Indicator code: RQ.PER.RNK.LOWER. Data source: World Bank World Development Indicators. Data year: 2023. Unit: percentage (0-100), where higher values indicate better regulatory quality. The lower-bound figure represents the conservative end of the 90% confidence interval around each country's percentile rank estimate. Per the source note: 'The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) are a research dataset summarizing the views on the quality of governance provided by a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries. Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, mo[nitored and replaced].' Coverage: 205 countries, all with data from 2023 (100% recency). Data quality: 100% of data points are official. Outliers: 0 extreme outliers detected at the 3-standard-deviation threshold. Year-over-year volatility: average change of 11.3%. Value range: 0.00% to 99.53%, a spread of 999% relative to the minimum. Rankings should be interpreted in light of the confidence-interval methodology, which means countries with higher measurement uncertainty will have lower lower-bound scores independent of their central estimate.

Sources

• World Bank