Is transparency a way to improve efficiency? An assessment of Spanish municipalities

This paper shows that the level of municipal transparency influences the level of efficiency, which is measured by parametric and non-parametric techniques. More concretely, the findings suggest that the most transparent municipalities in terms of financial and economic information, as well as information on public services contracts, tend to be more efficient. The results were obtained for a sample of the 100 largest Spanish local governments over the period 2008–14, which focuses attention on the information disclosed by local governments.