Good governance and national information transparency: A comparative study of 117 countries

TL;DR

This study analyzes how good governance factors like democracy, economy, and management influence information transparency across 117 countries, controlling for economic and infrastructural variables.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis showing that governance indices are strong predictors of national information transparency, controlling for confounding factors.

Findings

Governance indices strongly predict transparency.

Economic and infrastructural factors are controlled for.

Transparency varies significantly across countries.

Abstract

Information transparency is a major building block of responsible governments. We explored factors influencing the information transparency of 117 world nations. After controlling for the effects of confounding variables of wealth (GDP per capita), corruption rate, population density, human capital, and telecommunication infrastructure, we found that the good governance indices (democracy, economy, and management) were strong and stable predictors of information transparency of world nations.