Determinants of Fiscal Transparency and Right to Information Reforms: A Study of Provincial Governments in Argentina

Using a novel dataset and conducting a multiple linear regression analysis, this study aims to answer the following research question: What explains the variation in the level of provincial government transparency in Argentina? This article examines two policy areas—fiscal transparency and right to information (RTI)—and tests five hypotheses related to democracy (electoral competition and turnover), government digital capacity, citizens’ internet access, and press visibility. Fiscal transparency is positively associated with electoral competition and population size; RTI law strength appears to be positively associated with gubernatorial turnover and development. However, government digital capacity, citizens’ internet access and press visibility do not appear to significantly influence transparency levels.

New fiscal law aims to clean up Panama’s reputation

Significance This marks another step towards Panama’s long-standing aim of strengthening its fiscal framework and countering its reputation as a tax haven. While the law will bring some improvements, much of Panama’s fiscal framework remains opaque. This will continue to pose reputational risks for investors and financiers. Impacts The fiscal reform will have knock-on effects for businesses in terms of updating taxation and regulatory procedures. Ongoing analysis of the Pandora Papers could reveal further links to Panama’s corporate financing and, potentially, public figures. A push to improve fiscal transparency could hit financial sector revenues in the short term, as investors move to other jurisdictions.

Why do Sovereign Borrowers Post Collateral? Evidence from the 19th Century

This paper explores the reasons why sovereign borrowers post collateral. Such behavior is paradoxical because conventional interpretations of collateral stress repossession of the assets pledged as the key to securing lenders against information asymmetries and moral hazard. However, repossession is generally difficult in the case of sovereign debt and in some cases impossible. Nevertheless, such sovereign “hypothecations” have a long history and are again becoming very popular today in developing countries. To explain sovereign collateralization, we emphasize an informational channel. Posting collateral produces information on opaque borrowers by displaying borrowers’ behavior and resources. We support this interpretation by examining the hypothecation “mania” of 1849-1875, when sovereigns borrowing in the London Stock Exchange pledged all kinds of intangible revenues. Yet, at that time, sovereign immunity fully protected both sovereigns and their assets and possessions. Still, we show that hypothecations significantly decreased the cost of sovereign debt. To explain how, we stress the pledges’ role in documenting sovereigns’ wealth and the management of revenue streams. Based on an exhaustive library of bond prospectuses collected from primary sources, matched with a panel of sovereign bond yields and an innovative measure of sovereign fiscal transparency, we show that collateral minutely described in debt covenants served to document and monitor sovereign resources and development prospects. Encasing this information in contracts written by lawyers served to certify the quality of the resulting data disclosure process, explaining investors’ readiness to pay a premium.

Do transparency mechanisms reduce government corruption? A meta-analysis

This article presents a meta-analysis of empirical studies to examine the role of transparency mechanisms for curbing corruption. The analysis reveals that transparency has an overall significant, though small, effect size in reducing corruption. Transparency is more effective for reducing subjective than objective corruption measures. While legal transparency mechanisms with freedom of information laws are important, fiscal transparency and e-transparency play a stronger role in fighting government corruption. Accountability and publicity add to transparency mechanisms for reducing corruption. Points for practitioners This meta-analysis study confirms a significantly negative association between transparency and corruption. Transparency advocates can champion transparency mechanisms as significant tools for reducing corruption. Different transparency mechanisms and good governance mechanisms are needed to reinforce transparency for reducing corruption.

Ethical Issues in Academic Global Reproductive Health

This chapter addresses the ethical issues relevant to all academics and academic institutions engaging in global health, with a focus on international experiences in women’s health. The ethical issues for educational and clinical program development, such as sustainability, mutual benefit, and transparency, are relatively new interests. The authors discuss the ethical issues involved with global health research, including funding, community involvement, and informed consent and institutional review boards and argue that sustainability, mutual benefit, and fiscal transparency should be part of formal agreements and memoranda of understanding between academic global health partners; exchanges of learners should be bilateral and equitable; funding should be sustainable and fairly distributed; transcultural and translational issues must be welcomed and valued; research must be ethically grounded because of fundamental disparities between universities in low- and high-income countries; and issues of governance and institutional autonomy must be considered as transnational university partnerships are developed.