Accountability and Transparency to Fight against Corruption: An International Comparative Analysis

The paper analyzes whether transparency, the quality of budgetary management and the strength of audit institutions have a positive effect on corruption and can increase trust in governments from a comparative analysis. The study is based on panel data from 75 countries worldwide about transparency and corruption published by international organizations, testing a relation between the transparency and accountability of a country and corruption and trust in governments has been tested. The results show that transparency, the quality of budgetary management and audit systems positively affect the perception of corruption. Consequently, politicians must consider enhancing the elaboration and disclosing of accounting information as a tool to improve public management and reduce the perception of corruption. However, it is not found that transparency or strengthening the Supreme Audit Institutions increases the level of confidence.