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FISCAL TRANSPARENCY AT THE CHINESE PROVINCIAL LEVEL
Author(s) -
DENG SHULIAN,
PENG JUN,
WANG CONG
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/padm.12031
Subject(s) - promulgation , transparency (behavior) , china , contradiction , corporate governance , open government , central government , government (linguistics) , volatility (finance) , business , economics , accounting , economic policy , public economics , public administration , political science , finance , local government , law , philosophy , linguistics , epistemology
There is a global movement towards more budgetary transparency, in both developed and developing countries, as this lies at the heart of responsible governance. Since the promulgation of the Regulation on Open Government Information in China in 2008, China has witnessed an external demand and internal push for more budgetary transparency. Using annual survey data collected between 2009 and 2012, we found that budgetary transparency at the Chinese provincial government level, although showing slight improvement over this period, was still very low, and there was significant volatility in the amount of information disclosed by individual provinces from year to year. These findings are mostly due to a contradiction between the central government's stated desire for more transparency and deep‐rooted institutional and legal barriers against transparency. Recommendations are made as to how transparency can be further improved in China and other parts of the world.