The aim of the paper is to quantitatively evaluate the quality of institutions in innovation-driven economies. We define institutions as socially approved behaviour models that restrict the rationality of an individual and constrain or encourage specific behaviour. We classify institutions into two groups - governance institutions and value institutions. The analysis confirms that the leaders regarding the quality of institutions are the Nordic countries, Western European countries, as well as Canada, USA and Australia and the laggards - Southern, Central and Eastern European countries. Thus low quality of institutions might impede the economic convergence. Results of the research can be applied to global development policies and regional development policies for geo-political regions, e.g. the European Union.