UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series

Deconstructing Quality Infrastructure: A Quantitative Analysis of the Global QI Index

Ulrich Harmes-Liedtke, Carlo Pietrobelli, Ann-Sara Ramkissoon & Francesco Salustri #2026-006

Quality Infrastructure (QI) is defined as the system comprising organizations (public and private), policies, legal and regulatory frameworks, and practices that support and enhance the quality, safety, and environmental feature of goods, services, and processes. The Global Quality Infrastructure Index (GQII) is a publicly available database and ranking system that compares QI development across 185 countries. This paper reviews the GQII’s methodology and examines how sensitive the country rankings are to methodological adjustments. We employ three distinct approaches: (1) computing component rankings using alternative percentile functions; (2) measuring indicators in per capita terms; and (3) estimating component weights through regression analysis linking QI indicators to economic performance. Our findings confirm that the GQII provides fundamentally robust information for policymakers and researchers. However, while top performing countries remain relatively stable, countries ranked in the middle and the bottom may change their rank depending on the methodology used. This suggests robustness in the index's ability to identify leaders in QI development, and for lagging countries the preference to rank groups of countries based on common QI factors rather than individual countries’ performance.

JEL Classification: L15, O25, O14

Keywords: Quality Infrastructures, Quality Management, Standards, Certification, Metrology, Industrial and Innovation Policy, Innovation indicators

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53330/PSKR4856

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