The paper describes the accounting profession role in the framework of corporate and securities regulation as a tool to "control" directors & managers in the interest of investors. It delves in the relevance of auditor's independence, analyzing the crucial issues and moments that may put that...

Local governance is all about service delivery at the grass roots. Achieving service delivery at that level requires an effective internal audit to establish integrity in the management of public expenditure. Once integrity is achieved fiscal transparency ushers in fiscal accountability. The...

In the economic literature various political institutions designed to control the government have been analyzed. However, an important institution has been neglected so far: independent auditing institutions with an extended mandate to analyze the budget draft and individual policy proposals. We...

During the 1990s, more than a quarter of the countries of the world revised their constitutions to include an expand the role of their legislatures. This paper examines one of the most important roles for legislatures - that of financial oversight - and considers some of the lessons emerging...

The establishment of the new Australian Parliamentary Budget Office in 2012 has created a body capable of increasing the transparency and accountability of public finance by providing independent policy costings, budget analysis, and forecasts to the Parliament. This working paper examines the...