While recent decades have witnessed a rise in the use and forms of Global Performance Indicators (GPIs), there is little systematic evidence on their effects. In this article, we address the effects of GPIs through a specific focus on international organizations’ (IOs) reporting on state compliance with international rules. We focus on the International Labour Organization (ILO), which offers a unique case for evaluating the impact of performance indicators in the absence of enforcement. We develop an argument for why reporting by IOs should lead states to correct non-compliant behavior, and when those effects should be particularly strong. Our principal findings are three-fold. First, ILO reporting has significant and durable effects on state respect for labor rights, especially in addressing severe cases of non-compliance. Second, reporting affects state behavior quite immediately, but can also lead to improvements when repeated over longer periods of time. Third, reporting has stronger effects on improvements in labor rights when the target states are democratic and have the resource capacity to correct violations. These findings have important implications for our understanding of GPIs and the effect of IO reporting on state compliance.

This paper highlights how international organizations can use Global Performance Indicators (GPIs) to drive policy change through transnational market pressure. When international organizations are credible assessors of state policy, and when monitored countries compete for market resources, GPIs transmit information about country risk and stabilize market expectations. Under these conditions, banks and investors may restrict access to capital in non-compliant states and incentivize increased compliance. I demonstrate this market-enforcement mechanism through an analysis of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body that issues non-binding recommendations to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The FATF’s public listing of non-compliant jurisdictions has prompted international banks to move resources away from listed states and raised the costs of continued non-compliance, significantly increasing the number of states with laws criminalizing terrorist financing. This finding suggests a powerful pathway through which institutions influence domestic policy and highlights the power of GPIs in an age where information is a global currency.