Beyond Transparency Statements: Explaining the Impact of Efficiency and Auditing on the Disclosure of Public Information

Transparency has become a key element for public entities as a mechanism of reliability and accountability. In addition, the continuous auditing of these entities, as well as the efficient provision of public services, are important elements that can have an impact on a greater degree of transparency. In this paper, the aim is to measure how these factors influence the level of municipal transparency through an analysis of a sample of 143 Spanish municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants using the generalized model of moments. The results show that an efficient and highly audited municipality offers a higher level of public information and influences other political and socioeconomic factors.