Os influentes demográficos, socioeconômicos, político-institucionais e contábeis fiscais da transparência municipal: uma abordagem quantílica.

Abstract

Recent studies report incipient levels and a high variation in the level of transparency of Brazilian municipalities, exposing that the decision to disclose information transcends legal impositions. The heterogeneity of transparency levels among local governments is not exclusive to Brazil and the literature that investigates the factors that would influence this variation indicates divergent results. An important gap in this research is that the authors limit themselves to evaluating the effects of explanatory variables on the average of municipal public transparency, that is, a generalist premise is adopted by suggesting that the existence or not of influences, as well as the size and direction of the effects, does not vary independently of the level of local transparency. Thus, considering the demographic, socioeconomic, political-institutional, and fiscal accounting influences indicated by the literature, the objective of this research is to verify whether the same set of variables would influence the public transparency of Brazilian municipalities with high, medium and low levels of transparency. Based on the Legitimacy Theory, especially strategic legitimacy, it is suggested as a hypothesis that three different sets of variables, indicated by the literature, influence public transparency of Brazilian municipalities with high, medium and low levels of transparency. To meet the research objective, the methodological approach relies on the Quasi-Cauchy quantile regression model. Quantiles 0.25 (q25), 0.50 (q50) and 0.75 (q75) are explored, where q25 represents a low level of transparency, q50 represents a medium level of transparency and q75 represents a high level of municipal public transparency. The results found do not allow us to reject the research hypothesis. Among the fourteen variables that influence q25, six are from the demographic dimension, six are from the socioeconomic dimension, two are from the political-institutional dimension and three are from the fiscal accounting dimension. Among the sixteen variables that influence the q50, six are from the demographic dimension, five are from the socioeconomic dimension, two are from the political-institutional dimension and three are from the fiscal accounting dimension. Among the thirteen variables that influence q75, six are from the demographic dimension, three are from the socioeconomic dimension, one is from the political-institutional dimension and three are from the fiscal accounting dimension. As a way of strengthening the research findings, a robustness analysis was proposed. Regarding the direction of the effects of the variables in the main model, most of the results are repeated in the additional robustness model. The results of this study can be useful for citizens, legislative powers, and external control bodies. Among the contributions, the findings allow us to outline the profile of municipalities that tend not to be transparent. This can serve as red flags for legislatures and audit courts in their supervisory functions and for citizens to make more rational decisions, including electoral ones.