Anti-corruption barriers, financial transparency and accounting quality in political parties: Evidence from Spain

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the transparency and quality of the Spanish political parties’ accounting information, as well as the factors that determine it, in a temporal context marked by the introduction of the institutional anti-corruption barriers, which harden the obligations in terms of financial transparency. The sample is composed by all the political organizations audited in the Auditors Court (AC) during the period analysed. The econometric model is estimated through the statistical methodologies of the linear Panel Data fixed effects and the ordered logistic regression, both with different types of accounting information. One formed with original accounting data, and another corrected and improved using the AC reports. The results show that the quality of the accounting information of the political parties is deficient and so is the level of the financial transparency. Likewise, the explanatory power of the models estimated with corrected accounting information is more significant, being the ratio of the private and public income, age, debt and the saving rate, variables that strongly affect the quality of the accounting information. Finally, the institutional anti-corruption barriers imposed in terms of financial transparency have not been enough. In fact, last year was the worst in the time series, since there is no party that discloses the quality financial information.