Measuring What Matters: Some Guidelines for Index Creation - Guest Post by Bruce Wydick Development Impact Guest Blogger June 30, 2026 This page in: English

https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/impactevaluations/measuring-what-matters--some-guidelines-for-index-creation----gu For years, I used indices in my development research with a level of confidence that, in retrospect, may not have been entirely earned. I knew running impact estimations on indices increased statistical power and reduced over-testing. I knew how to create the normal indices used by other development researchers and which indices referees expected to see. But if someone in a seminar had asked why I chose that particular index, I probably would have responded with a long explanation that sounded thoughtful but was mostly a sophisticated way of saying, “That’s what everyone else does.”