Budget Forecast Errors in Spanish Municipalities: The Role of Transparency

Does budget transparency effectively limit the use of creative accounting to circumvent fiscal rules? Through examining a Spanish reform that limited the obligation to provide regular budget information, I study the effect of relaxing transparency rules on budget forecast errors. After the reform, m...

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Αποθηκεύτηκε σε:
Λεπτομέρειες βιβλιογραφικής εγγραφής
Εκδόθηκε σε:MAGKS - Joint Discussion Paper Series in Economics (Band 27-2023)
Κύριος συγγραφέας: García, Israel
Μορφή: Arbeit
Γλώσσα:Αγγλικά
Έκδοση: Philipps-Universität Marburg 2023
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Περιγραφή
Περίληψη:Does budget transparency effectively limit the use of creative accounting to circumvent fiscal rules? Through examining a Spanish reform that limited the obligation to provide regular budget information, I study the effect of relaxing transparency rules on budget forecast errors. After the reform, municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants were not obligated to provide quarterly information on cumulative budget execution and forecast deviations. Using a difference-in-differences estimator in a sample of municipalities from this Madrid region between 2010−2019, I compare expenditure and revenue forecast errors between municipalities below 5,000 inhabitants (treatment group) and above 5,000 inhabitants (control group). I observe that reducing the frequency of budget reporting leads to a systematic underestimation of planned expenditures and revenues. Furthermore, most differences are found in pre- and electoral periods, indicating a political forecast cycle. I then combine the introduction of a gender quota with the transparency reform to study gender differences in budget forecast errors, finding that female politicians systematically deviate from initial expenditure projections for electoral purposes.
Φυσική περιγραφή:45 Seiten
DOI:10.17192/es2023.0187