Does strong governance stimulate the effect of economic freedom and financial literacy on financial inclusion? a cross-country evidence

This study examines the interlinkages between financial literacy, economic freedom, government quality, and financial inclusion using cross-sectional and panel data analysis. Using a sample of 98 countries from the year 2007 to 2018, OLS and system GMM estimators were used to analyze the results. The estimation results indicate that financial literacy and government quality positively influence financial inclusion. Results also find that governance quality strengthens the effect of financial literacy on financial inclusion. The results derived from the dynamic panel model also reasonably conclude the positive effect of economic freedom on financial inclusion while government quality acts as a catalyst for their link. Our results are also robust to sub-panels based on the level of country risk.

Compliance level with IFRS disclosure requirements across 12 African countries: do enforcement mechanisms matter?

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of enforcement, and more particularly government quality and the stock market development, on compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) disclosure requirements in 12 African countries. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a self-constructed compliance index from content analysis and apply panel regressions for a sample of 606 firm-year observations during the period 2012 to 2014. Findings This analysis illustrates a high level of disparity of information provided by companies, possibly due to the complexity of the selected standards and the depth of information required. The findings reveal that government quality and stock market development have a positive and significant effect on compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements in Africa. This implies that enforcement plays a key role in improving the compliance level across African countries. Practical implications These findings should be of interest to government policymakers, professional bodies, regulators and standard setters who are concerned with compliance and financial reporting transparency at a country level. It should be a signal to call for more effort to strengthen the enforcement of accounting standards and capital market supervision by putting in place some disciplinary actions for non-compliance with IFRS. The authors also believe that the results may help African policymakers and regulators enhance the level of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements by enforcing accounting standards. Originality/value This research contributes to the compliance literature by investigating the effect of enforcement on compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements in the African countries, an understudied context where enforcement is a challenge.

Russian government quality award: 25 years towards organizational excellence

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review the Russian Federation Government Quality Award (RFGQA) over its 25-year existence. Design/methodology/approach This paper looks into the evolution, model and key provisions of RFGQA, based on the authors’ long-time experience as an Award assessor. Apart from that, methodologically, this study uses the desktop research method, comparative literature review. Findings The research results show that RFGQA over its 25 years has become the most popular approach to the development of organizational excellence for Russian enterprises and organizations, regardless of the sphere of activity. Research limitations/implications This paper presents the core results of RFGQA’s 25-year existence. The comparison of the current Russian Quality Award model with the new European Foundation for Quality Management model is not analyzed. Originality/value This research paper extends current knowledge of national quality awards and presents an original set of information about RFGQA, its methodology and results.

Improving Governance in Tightly Controlled Societies

This chapter is about the seeming contradiction—quality of government without full democracy. Quality of government (QoG) depends critically on the vision and actions of transformational or less-than-transformational leadership. This factor is often overlooked by analyses of structural and contingent factors. The nature of that leadership sometimes leads to societies in which citizens enjoy high QoG despite undemocratic rule. A few nations provide high government quality to their citizens, but restrict fundamental freedoms (and thus are less than democratic). Should we reconceptualize quality of government to take account of these “imperfect” governmental providers?

IMPACT OF POLITICAL AND FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION ON THE GOVERNMENT QUALITY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Since the 1970s, the process of decentralization has spread throughout the world, and today more than 95% of democratic countries are decentralized. Decentralization should lead to a well-organized and more efficient local government. Nevertheless, the empirical results are rather vague. The motivation for this paper is to examine the impact of political and fiscal decentralization on the quality of government in seventeen countries in Central and Eastern Europe for the period 1998 - 2012. The main objective of the paper is to explore whether fiscal decentralization positively influences the quality of government and whether political decentralization reduces its positive influence. An additional contribution of the paper comes from the introduction of a decentralization interaction variable. Our results have shown that fiscal decentralization has a positive impact on governance, while political decentralization was found to be statistically insignificant. Our results also showed that richer countries have higher government quality, that government size increases the level of corruption and decreases government quality, and that in more democratic countries politicians behave more responsibly and accountably, which decreases the level of corruption and increases government quality. We conclude that political decentralization cancels out the positive effects of fiscal decentralization on the quality of government, which can be explained by less developed institutions at the local level in Central and Eastern European countries.

Kalòs kai agathòs? government quality and cultural heritage in the regions of Europe

This paper uses panel data on over 200 regions of Europe during the years 2010–2015 to study the relationship between the quality of institutions and the capacity of local authorities and stakeholders to effectively protect and support cultural heritage, using new designations in the UNESCO World Heritage List as a proxy. Besides analyzing the spatial distribution of World Heritage sites across European regions, we test whether the location of a region matters for the chances of obtaining a new UNESCO designation by controlling for the stock of World Heritage in the surrounding regions, and whether low regional government quality is an obstacle to inclusion of sites into the List. While we can detect no significant spill-overs from the stock of World Heritage in surrounding regions, we find evidence that local government quality matters for the chances of a region gaining a UNESCO site designation.

Research on Performance Evaluation of Diversified Government Quality Work and Analysis on Application Practice in Nei Mongol

The evaluation of public satisfaction with government quality work is an evaluation form to evaluate government performance from the perspective of the public. The evaluation process is open and transparent, and the results are relatively objective and fair. Taking the application practice in Nei Mongol as an example, in this paper, an index framework is designed and constructed, 12 leagues and cities in the whole region are covered by the investigation, and the actual effect of local quality work is explored and analyzed in combination with big data technology so as to provide enlightenment and reference for relevant research work in the quality field.