Applied Economics and Finance Vol. 9, No. 2; May 2022 ISSN 2332-7294 E-ISSN 2332-7308 Published by Redfame Publishing URL: http://aef.redfame.com 1 Political Will-ACT Index: Measuring the Readiness of Countries to Cross Development Greyline Ali Massoud 1 1 Professor of Economics at Beni-Suef University, Egypt Correspondence: Prof. Ali Massoud, Beni-Suef University, Egypt. Received: December 28, 2022 Accepted: March 2, 2022 Available online: April 11, 2022 doi:10.11114/aef.v9i2.5526 URL: https://doi.org/10.11114/aef.v9i2.5526 Abstract This paper aims to present a new index, the Political Will-ACT Index. The proposed index provides a measure for the readiness of low & middle income countries to cross development greyline. A line if a country cross mange to cross, it achieves sustainable development. The concept of Political Will-ACT merges political will with three other dimensions: ability, commitment, and tolerance. The paper concludes that for countries to achieve sustainable economic development, they have to fulfill four conditions: (1) Their political leaders should have clear vision for achieving sustainable development. (2) Their governments must be committed to their reform agendas & programs. (3) The ability of the government to mobilize enough resources needed for implementing reform agendas. (4) Countries must tolerate the economic agents during excuting reform programs & policies. Keywords: sustainable economic development, political will, institutions, political stability, government effectiveness, rule of law, and control of corruption 1. Introduction Economists and activists usually blame political will for the low level of development in developing countries. However, measuring political will is not an easy task and it only can be measured indirectly, Brinderhoff (2000). Many studies have shown the importance of political will and effective govrnance in achieving economic growth. Brinkerhoff (2000) argues that effective and democratic governance have strong impacts on sectorial reforms which is a very important aspect in economic development and prosperity for developing countries. I argue that even though political will is a preriquiste for achieving sustainable economic development, it is not an enough condition. The ability of any country to cross development greyline depends largely on, what I call, Political Will-ACT. This concept merges political will with three other dimensions: ability, commitment, and tolerance. According to this concept, political will is a prerequisite for crossing the development greyline of any county. Why this is the case? This is because development process is led by politics and mostly affected by it. The first step in development process for countries is the existence of the political will of their leaders and their influential institutions to achieve sustainable economic development. This political will must be transferred into actions. However, taking actions depends on the ability of political leaders to mobilize resources to fulfill the conditions needed for these actions to take place. Moreover, these actions are expected to have impacts on some economic agents. Thus, some groups may resist them which means that political leaders must find ways to pass their development policies & agendas through responding to these negatively affected groups. In this regards, awareness raising of the public regarding on the potential gains from reforms agendas is a core element for the continuity of development process. It also requires a great level of commitment from political leaders and their governments to go through development process in order to be successful in crossing development greyline. From the above discussion, I argue that political will, by itself, is not enough to cross development greyline in any country. It must be accompanied with three other factors. Firstly, the ability of the government to implement reform agendas and the proposed economic transformation’s plans. Secondly, the existence of the commitment of political leaders to go through the development process and to take needed actions. Thirdly, using a tolerance approach in dealing with economic agents to overcome difficulties and challenges that may rise during transformation process. This paper aims to present a new index, I call it Political Will-ACT Index. This index measures the level political will, ability, commitment and tolerance in low & middle income countries. Thus, Political Will -ACT Index provides a