The Impacts of Fiscal Openness: A Review of the Evidence

March, 2015 | By Paolo de Renzio and Joachim Wehner (GIFT) and the International Budget Partnership

Fiscal transparency and participation in budgeting are widely promoted and enshrined in an increasing number of international standards and norms. This paper provides the first structured review of the impacts of “fiscal openness” interventions, based on a database of 38 empirical studies that:

• empirically evaluate a causal claim about the impact of an element of fiscal openness;
• have achieved publication as a peer-reviewed academic article, or as a book with an academic press or well-known commercial publisher; and
• are of sufficient length to qualify as a substantial piece of original research.

The authors elaborate on some aspects of these criteria and note the resulting set of studies for this review. They also examine empirical work that focuses, or otherwise makes a significant contribution to, the evaluation of a causal argument about the impact of fiscal transparency or participation in budgeting.

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• The Impacts of Fiscal Openness: A Review of the Evidence (March, 2015)