Explaining budget transparency through political factors

This study analyses various factors that can affect the level of budget transparency. It focuses on several political characteristics, investigating a pool of 95 countries for the years 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2015. Findings from this study indicate that both govern- ments’ characteristics and the characteristics of political and electoral systems affect the level of budget transparency. These results extend findings from previous literature on determinants of open budgets by using a more extended period and additional political and electoral features, and also by adopting an international comparative approach.