Fiscal transparency is a core pillar of open government, yet its implementation at the local level remains uneven. This study investigates how the Open Government Partnership (OGP) contributes to fiscal transparency as a form of public sector innovation through a comparative analysis of local...

This paper examines whether and how national audits affect local fiscal transparency in China. Using panel data from 30 provinces between 2009 and 2018, we find that national audits significantly improve local fiscal transparency after controlling for various economic and institutional factors....

This report calls for radical debt transparency, to shift from current, often opaque, practices toward full and timely disclosure. Since the World Bank's first comprehensive assessment of debt transparency in developing countries in 2021, more countries now report debt data, but there are...

An IMF team found that Panama has a cash-based system of budgeting and accounting that generates good information on many aspects of public finances. There are, however, many weaknesses in the system which diverge from the sound practices included in the Fund's Fiscal Transparency Code. Panama's...

South Africa has many elements of sound fiscal transparency practices. Based on an assessment of fiscal transparency practices against the IMF's Fiscal Transparency Code, South Africa's practices are strongest in fiscal reporting, followed by fiscal forecasting and budgeting, and weakest in...

This paper evaluates positive and negative media coverage of online local budget transparency (OLBT) and its impact on budget transparency in Croatian local administrative units in 2018. Using multinomial logistic regression, research confirmed a strong impact of media coverage on budget...

This paper examines how fiscal transparency is linked to bank development. It also hypothesizes that the effect is mediated by reasonable channel(s). Drawing upon a panel dataset of emerging and developing economies, we find that fiscal transparency is positively related to the private credit...

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) provide opportunities for a more flexible and market-based provision of public services. At the same time, they may impair fiscal transparency and offer politicians discretion in the presence of strict fiscal rules if these only constrain the core udget. Using a...

Canada’s senior governments raise and spend huge amounts, and have legally unlimited capacity to borrow when their expenses exceed their revenues. Holding public officials accountable for their spending, taxing and borrowing is a foundational task in a system of representative government....

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) provide opportunities for a more flexible and market-based provision of public services. At the same time, they may impair fiscal transparency and offer politicians discretion in the presence of strict fiscal rules if these only constrain the core budget. Using a...

1 Introduction -- 2 Back to the Basics of PFM -- 3 New Goals, More Actors: Rethinking the political economy of fiscal institutions -- 4 The evolving and enduring role of finance ministries -- 5 The evolution of budgeting practices -- 6. Evolution of Treasury Practices -- 7 Planning and Budgeting...

This report provides an evaluation of fiscal transparency practices (FTE) in Benin according to the standards defined by the IMF's Fiscal Transparency Code. The evaluation focuses on 36 principles covering three pillars of the Code: (I) fiscal reporting; (II) fiscal forecasting and budgeting;...

Canada’s senior governments raise and spend huge amounts, and have legally unlimited capacity to borrow when their expenses exceed their revenues. Holding public officials accountable for their spending, taxing and borrowing is a foundational task in a system of representative government....

Many governments have started issuing 'green' bonds tied to expenditures on projects with environmental objectives such as climate change mitigation. While well-intentioned, issuance of a green bond by an investment-grade sovereign has no environmental impact, leaves funding costs unchanged,...

The speed, reach, and magnitude of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic sent a shockwave around the globe that tested the capacity of Public Finance Management (PFM) systems to support governments' responses to crises. Fiscal transparency was not a foremost priority for decisionmakers during the...

In July 2023, following a request from the Indian G20 Presidency, the OECD delivered a report making the case for enhanced tax transparency on real estate and setting out a number of conceptual solutions to improve the existing architecture on a voluntary basis. Since then, technical work has...

The notion of transparency refers primarily to stakeholder insight, but is suggestive also of accountability, knowledge sharing, and due diligence. Its value for organizations, stakeholders and the wider society is therefore often taken for granted and repeatedly celebrated as a necessary...

Strong fiscal institutions have contributed to Chile's macroeconomic stability, and recent reform initiatives have focused on enhancing these institutions and fiscal transparency. This report assesses fiscal transparency practices in Chile in relation to the requirements of the IMF's Fiscal...

World experience shows that public participation in the budget process and openness in the public sector are the necessary conditions for a proper economic strategy of the State. Financial openness contributes to the efficient collection and distribution of public resources. It expands the...

This paper presents an evaluation index system of public service quality, which contains 35 indexes from the dimensions of the output and effect. Based on data from 2010 to 2017 in 12 coastal provinces and cities of China, this paper assesses public service quality by using the methods of...

This report evaluates Honduras's fiscal transparency practices in relation to the IMF Fiscal Transparency Code (FTC). Honduras's score is similar to those of other Latin American countries and emerging market economies that have undergone the evaluation. In relation to the fiscal transparency...

Reflecting an ongoing commitment to enhancing fiscal transparency, Maldives is the first small island state, and the second country in Asia, to have undertaken a Fiscal Transparency Evaluation (FTE). The Government of the Maldives (GoM) recognizes the importance of transparency in fiscal...

The government of Estonia places a high importance on openness and transparency, both for their citizens and for regional and international partners. This is evidenced from various earlier reports on transparency and the implementation of many subsequent improvements in fiscal transparency...

The disclosure of fiscal and economic forecasts represents an increasingly important pillar of government transparency. Yet, a measure of transparency in fiscal and economic forecasts is presently missing. This article exploits the institutional features of the European Union’s (EU) Stability...

This empirical research sheds light on the internal mechanism of government fiscal transparency, media coverage, and the efficiency fiscal expenditures on science & technology (FESTs). Research findings show that fiscal transparency and media coverage have a significant positive effect on the...

Nongovernmental stakeholders, including taxpayers and investors of government bonds, have an interest in government financial information. Fiscal transparency entails both access to and understandability of government information. Analyses of a government borrower’s financial information,...

Typically, the tax treaty entitlement to fiscally transparent entities (‘FTEs’) has been a matter of debate in the arena of international tax. FTEs are not taxed at the entity level but at the level of the persons who have an ownership interest in that entity. Hands down, it is one of the...

This century has seen an impressive increase in public access to fiscal information and civic engagement on budget issues. Norms of fiscal transparency have gained ground around the world. Yet many advocates and practitioners in the fiscal transparency and accountability (T/A) field expected...