Very little is known about how state governments function and are organized. Even basic information about human resources, financial management and internal controls is scarce. This lack of information represents a huge obstacle for research, but it is also a big limitation for any reform effort, since the inputs for a proper diagnosis are lacking. This paper offers a guide of 35 good government indicators that have been identified for the states of Mexico since 1997.

It is a preliminary attempt to integrate different and under‐used information that diverse institutions and researchers have produced over the past decade. This work pretends to facilitate the comparison and to promote the use of these indicators; it is also a first step into the construction of indicators that are conceptually sounder, more consistent and replicable. The information is organized in index cards that contain the following information: title, producer, type of funding, where can it be found, type of data used, time span of the studies and how many states does each cover, contact, methodology used, format of the results, examples of data provided, adequate and inadequate use of the indicators, and the assumptions underlying the construction of each index or indicator.