Debt-to-GDP ratios have grown to unprecedented levels in many industrialized economies. This requires disciplined consolidation efforts which are, however, supposed to come now at the wrong time with the economic recovery being fragile. Against this background, we call for a global debt brake...

The primary purpose of this study is three-fold: to identify regulations designed to improve the United States government's financial management, to examine the current state of the agencies' financial statements' audit and internal control and to investigate the changes, if any, in internal...

Current practice regarding materiality in government audits under generally accepted auditing standards varies widely. In this empirical study, we investigate whether government auditors agree on an appropriate base for calculating materiality and what percentages they apply. In a government...

Relying on a large sample of countries, this paper quantifies the effect of political constraints, as measured by legislative control by the incumbent government, on the size of fiscal stimulus packages that have been put in place as reaction to the Great Recession. The results suggest that on...

Central government bailouts of local governments are commonly viewed as a recipe for local fiscal indiscipline, as local governments learn that the center will come to the rescue in times of trouble. Little is known however about whether such tendencies can be dampened if assistance is...

This study is an exploratory exercise to find out factors which hinder effective performance of public procurement audit. Knowledge of the challenges is of importance especially to public procurement entities, the Ghana Audit Service, and the Central Government. To the procurement entities, this...

Union budget and its direction is one of the key indicators of the economic analysis of the nation. Political parties, big corporate houses, media and common household are anxiously waiting for the Union Budget. Almost all stakeholders of the nation have different expectations from the budget...

Ten years after the Securities and Exchange Commission mandated the conversion of corporate financial statements to machine-readable formats, there is still no analogous mandate for state and local government Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs). We explore the challenges and benefits...

Internal auditing is gaining more and more recognition as an important tool for improving organizational performance. In many countries, both public and private sectors advance internal audit as a profession, process and body of knowledge. The Philippines is one such country having put in place...

We investigate whether the presence of municipal audit committees is associated with internal control quality in the municipal setting. The evidence shows that only 20% of municipalities in our sample voluntarily maintained an audit committee during the sample period of 2001 through 2004. Our...