It is widely believed that fiscal transparency has large and positive effects on fiscal performance. According to the IMF, “transparency in government operations is widely regarded as an important precondition for macroeconomic fiscal sustainability, good governance, and overall fiscal rectitude” (Kopits & Craig (1998, p. 1)). Indeed, both the IMF and the OECD are currently developing Codes of ...

Recent scholarship on transparency has been voluminous, and transparency policies continue to garner international adherents through global initiatives such as the Open Government Partnership. Yet extant scholarship has failed to address the empirical parameters for what constitutes ‘transparency’ and what does not. This lacuna gives way to misuses and abuses, jeopardizing the analytical utilit...

Effective and timely use of the Internet, with a navigable and regularly-updated corporate Web site, can improve perceptions about a company’s transparency vis-à-vis corporate governance practices. Based on an empirical analysis of data from 30 company Web sites in the DJIA, we conclude that a majority of companies underutilize their Web sites in communicating corporate governance information. ...

Foliage transparency in trees is an important indicator for forest health assessment. This paper helps advance transparency measurement research by presenting methods of automatic tree boundary extraction and foliage transparency estimation from digital images taken from the ground of open grown trees. Extraction of proper boundaries of tree crowns is the initial step in the determination of cr...

In this paper, we examine the patterns of behaviour of companies from former socialist countries related to the application of good corporate governance practices. We try to assess the level of transparency and to determine if there are any factors that systematically influence corporate behaviour in this regard. Using a sample of 145 companies from Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia, we a...

We examine how the luminance distributions of overlaid surfaces affect the perception of transparency of neutral density filters. Pairs of neutral density filters were generated overlying variegated backgrounds of varying luminance distributions, and observers adjusted a single parameter of one filter until the pair appeared equally transparent. Physically identical filters appeared equally tra...

The absorption of a resonant coupling laser driving a closed degenerate two-level system in an atomic cesium beam was investigated as a function of the detuning of a second laser probing the same transition. The measurements were performed for four different polarization combinations of the two laser beams. Except for the beams of counterrotating polarizations all coupling-laser absorption prof...

Since the nineties, transparency has gained significant attention in the eu context, being mainly viewed as a response to the lack of legitimacy and as a mean to cope with the democratic deficit. Furthermore, the notion of transparency has emerged in a wide range of other areas, ranging from legislation on financial matters to social law and to recruitment by the EU Institutions1. Despite the d...

We consider whether a career-minded expert would make better decisions if the principal could observe the consequences of the expert’s action. The previous literature has found that this “transparency of consequence” can only improve the efficacy of the expert’s decision making. We show, however, that this conclusion is very sensitive to the specified cost structure. While learning the conseque...