Political institutions behind good governance

•The impact of constitutional rules on government quality is investigated.•The empirical analysis is based on 80 democracies over the period 1996-2011.•Electoral rules per se do not seem to matter for government quality.•The presidential system shows a lower government performance than the parliamentary system.•The presidential regime boosts government quality when combined with plurality rule.

The present paper investigates the role of political institutions - namely, political regimes and electoral rules - in shaping the capacity of the government to implement policies that address citizens' preferences, i.e., “good governance”. The empirical analysis, conducted on a panel of 80 democratic countries over the period 1996-2011, shows that the performance of the government depends on the interaction between electoral rules and political regimes. In particular, the performance of a government under a presidential regime improves when associated with a majoritarian electoral rule, while it worsens with a proportional electoral rule.