Culture matters: what cultural values influence budget transparency?

ABSTRACT

This article empirically examines whether cultural values significantly influence budget transparency. We employ data for budget transparency from the Open Budget Index, and data for national culture from Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, the Global Leadership and Behavioral Effectiveness Research Project and the World Values Survey to explore this question. We find evidence that individualism positively influences budget transparency. We also find that stronger preferences for institutional collectivism, masculinity and authoritarian rule lower budget transparency. These results suggest that national culture shapes preferences for budget transparency and influences the possibility of success for attempts to improve budget transparency across countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Budget transparency
• culture
• democracy
• Hofstede
• World Values Survey
• GLOBE

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• H60
• H87
• O10

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.