forth by the “Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicators” (henceforth ‘HCCI’), published jointly by the OECD and European Commission. After aggregating and standardizing the data for each survey question, we obtain 16 QoG indictors for each region. With a number of decisions needed to be made along the way in constructing such an index, we also undertake a series of extensive sensitivity tests to see whether changes in our model alter the final data in meaningful ways. We find that the data constructed here are highly robust to multiple changes in weighting and aggregation schemes, the removal of individual questions or alterations in the demographic make-up of the respondents. Moreover, based on several regressions, the regional level data are highly correlated with such indicators of socio-economic development as infant mortality rates, GDP per capita and levels of technological capacity. A quick examination of the data reveals fairly predictable patterns among the regions with respect to QoG. All regions in the top performing EU members with regard to the national QoG index (Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands) are in the top 15% of all 172 regions. Among the NMS, all but one of the regions are in the bottom 50% (i.e. have a score lower than ‘0’), with the only exception being Nord Vest (0.21) in Romania. On the other hand, most of the EU 15 regions are in the top 50%, with Portugal and Greece being the only exceptions, having all of their respective regions under the mean average. Moreover, several regions in France and Italy are under the EU mean, with the latter having two in the bottom 10%.