The institutional, economic and social determinants of local government transparency

Interest in transparency is increasing worldwide. Literature on their determinants is evolving but is still in early stages. So far, it has typically focused on national governments while neglecting local governments. This paper examines the economic, social, and institutional determinants of local government transparency in Spain. We broaden the traditional fiscal focus by including corporate, social, contracting, and planning transparency indexes. Our results indicate that large municipalities and left-wing mayors report better transparency indexes; while the worst results are presented by provincial capitals, touristic cities and mayors with absolute majority. The analysis of specific transparency categories generally shows the consistent impact of these determinants.

[1]  Manfred Kochen,et al.  On the economics of information , 1972, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[2]  Ann Florini,et al.  The Right to Know: Transparency for an Open World , 2007 .

[3]  Mack Tennyson,et al.  The accessibility of financial reporting of u.s. municipalities on the internet , 2007 .

[4]  J. Stiglitz,et al.  Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information , 1981 .

[5]  Catharina Lindstedt,et al.  Transparency is not Enough: Making Transparency Effective in Reducing Corruption , 2010 .

[6]  Kristin M. Lord.  Perils and Promise of Global Transparency, The: Why the Information Revolution May Not Lead to Security, Democracy, or Peace , 2006 .

[7]  C. Hood.  From FOI World to WikiLeaks World: A New Chapter in the Transparency Story? , 2011 .

[8]  Alexandru Grigorescu,et al.  International Organizations and Government Transparency: Linking the International and Domestic Realms , 2003 .

[9]  J. Fox,et al.  The uncertain relationship between transparency and accountability , 2007 .

[10]  Mehmet Bac,et al.  Corruption, Connections and Transparency: Does a Better Screen Imply a Better Scene? , 2001 .

[11]  David Dreyer Lassen,et al.  Fiscal Transparency, Political Parties, and Debt in OECD Countries , 2003 .

[12]  Bengt Holmstrom,et al.  Moral Hazard and Observability , 1979 .

[13]  Brian J. Cook,et al.  Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency , 2007, Perspectives on Politics.

[14]  Daniel A. Kaufmann,et al.  Transparenting Transparency: Initial Empirics and Policy Applications , 2005 .

[15]  Aart Kraay,et al.  Growth without Governance , 2002 .

[16]  Santiago Lago-Peñas,et al.  Budget Transparency in Local Governments: An Empirical Analysis , 2011 .

[17]  Alasdair S. Roberts,et al.  Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age , 2006 .

[18]  David Heald,et al.  Varieties of transparency , 2006 .

[19]  Suzanne J. Piotrowski,et al.  Governmental Transparency in the Path of Administrative Reform , 2007 .

[20]  C. D. Del Bo,et al.  Public enterprises, planning and policy adoption: three welfare propositions , 2012 .

[21]  Stephen F. Knack,et al.  INSTITUTIONS AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE: CROSS‐COUNTRY TESTS USING ALTERNATIVE INSTITUTIONAL MEASURES , 1995 .

[22]  Gregg G. Van Ryzin,et al.  Citizen Attitudes Toward Transparency in Local Government , 2007 .

[23]  Tae Ho Eom,et al.  Anticorruption effects of information communication and technology (ICT) and social capital , 2009 .

[24]  Faezeh Ghazi.  Corruption and Growth , 2014 .

[25]  Thomas Barnebeck Andersen,et al.  E-Government as an anti-corruption strategy , 2009, Inf. Econ. Policy.

[26]  R L Williams,et al.  A Note on Robust Variance Estimation for Cluster‐Correlated Data , 2000, Biometrics.

[27]  K. Youm.  Freedom of Information: A Comparative Legal Survey , 2004 .

[28]  Jeannine E. Relly,et al.  Perceptions of transparency of government policymaking: A cross-national study , 2009, Gov. Inf. Q..

[29]  Sidney Verba,et al.  Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison. , 1980 .

[30]  Juan L. Gandía,et al.  Determinants of web site information by Spanish city councils , 2008, Online Inf. Rev..

[31]  J. Stiglitz.  The Contributions of the Economics of Information to Twentieth Century Economics , 2000 .

[32]  W. Baumol.  Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive , 1990, Journal of Political Economy.

[33]  Daron Acemoglu,et al.  Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution , 2001 .

[34]  Björn Frank,et al.  The demand for transparency: An empirical note , 2010 .

[35]  Eva Horn,et al.  Logics of Political Secrecy , 2011 .

[36]  L. Weill,et al.  Does better governance foster efficiency? An aggregate frontier analysis , 2005 .

[37]  Alasdair S. Roberts,et al.  Less Government, More Secrecy: Reinvention and the Weakening of Freedom of Information Law , 2000 .

[38]  Anthony M. Bertelli,et al.  Measuring Municipal Transparency , 2010 .

[39]  M. Gradstein,et al.  Transparency Gloves for Grabbing Hands? Politics and (Mis)Governance , 2002 .

[40]  A. Lizzeri,et al.  Transparency and Economic Policy , 2008 .

[41]  J. Alt,et al.  The Causes of Fiscal Transparency: Evidence from the American States , 2006 .

[42]  M. Tomàs,et al.  Factors influencing e-disclosure in local public administrations , 2008 .

[43]  James Melitski,et al.  E-Government as an Instrument of Fiscal Accountability and Responsiveness , 2006 .

[44]  Ivar Kolstad,et al.  Is Transparency the Key to Reducing Corruption in Resource-Rich Countries? , 2009 .

[45]  M. Olson,et al.  Governance and Growth: A Simple Hypothesis Explaining Cross-Country Differences in Productivity Growth , 2000 .

[46]  T. Besley,et al.  The Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India , 2000 .

[47]  Leonid Peisakhin,et al.  Is Transparency an Effective Anti-Corruption Strategy? Evidence from a Field Experiment in India , 2010 .

[48]  S. Tefft,et al.  The Right to Tell: The Role of Mass Media in Economic Development , 2003 .

[49]  Do Democracies Breed Rent-Seeking Behavior? , 2005 .

[50]  Albert Jacob Meijer,et al.  Transparent government: Parliamentary and legal accountability in an information age , 2003, Inf. Polity.

[51]  Clare Birchall,et al.  Introduction to ‘Secrecy and Transparency’ , 2011 .

[52]  John A. Doces,et al.  Transparency and unfair eviction in democracies and autocracies , 2006 .

[53]  Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar,et al.  e-Government process and incentives for online public financial information , 2008, Online Inf. Rev..

[54]  Alejandro Esteller-Moré,et al.  Fiscal Transparency , 2012 .

[55]  Roumeen Islam,et al.  Do More Transparent Governments Govern Better? , 2003 .

[56]  C. Demchak,et al.  Democracy and Bureaucracy in the Age of the Web , 2002 .

[57]  O. Williamson.  The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead , 2000 .

[58]  Alberto Alesina,et al.  Fiscal Discipline and the Budget Process , 1996 .