Publication: The Current State of Fiscal Transparency: Norms, Assessment, and Country Practices
Date
2013-09
ISSN
Published
2013-09
Author(s)
Petrie, Murray
Abstract
Over the last 15 years, there has been a
growing effort globally to promote fiscal transparency,
reflecting both that the public has a right to information,
and that transparency contributes to more equitable,
efficient, and effective fiscal policies. However, the
overall state of budget transparency is poor: measured
against the Open Budget Index, the national budgets of 77
countries, home to half the world’s population, fail to meet
basic standards of budget transparency. Efforts are underway
to improve the coherence of the multiplicity of standards,
strengthen the assessment of country practices, and to
address important gaps in the normative architecture, such
as norms for legislative oversight and direct public
participation. Many governments could rapidly improve
transparency by publishing reports they already produce
internally, which points to the need to strengthen
incentives for governments to be more transparent.
Citation
“Petrie, Murray. 2013. The Current State of Fiscal Transparency: Norms, Assessment, and Country Practices. PREM Notes;No. 4. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29697 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”