What does the quality of governance imply for urban prosperity?

•Various organisations stress the value of good governance for development.•Quality of governance refers to the quality of public policy-making and delivery.•The quality of governance is related to the prosperity of nations, regions and cities.•Prosperity needs to be understood more broadly than monetary wealth alone.•The quality of governance may help to judge the transferability of policy lessons.

The quality of governance is often closely linked to the prosperity of nations, regions or cities. Whether better governance is the product of greater prosperity or whether higher levels of prosperity lead to better governance is not entirely clear. Nevertheless, close attention to governance, and the quality of governance, is recommended when considering how urban prosperity can be compared and improved. The paper identifies clusters of countries according to the quality of their governance which are suggested as a means of identifying sets of broadly similar countries in which policy lessons may be more similar and more transferable.