Assessing Priorities of Transparency During COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil: Special Issue on Corruption, Lack of Transparency and the Misuse of Public Funds in Times of Crisis

Abstract

This article assesses the level of transparency of epidemiological and financial budgetary information on the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazilian state governments and the Federal District. State government web portals were assessed. A methodological instrument was developed to categorize and collect the data. We also assessed whether socioeconomic and epidemiological variables can explain state government transparency indices on pandemic information. According to our results, half of Brazilian states have advanced transparency, half have moderate transparency, and one has opaque transparency. HDI and monthly income are variables that better explain the level of transparency.