The Institute of Public Finance (IPF) and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) organized on October 22, 2021 Public Sector Economics 2021 Conference – Does fiscal openness pay off? The political and socio-economic effects of transparency, participation and accountability. Opening speeches were held by Sonja Schirmbeck (Director, Friedrich Ebert Foundation Regional Office), Hana Huzjak (Senior Economic Adviser, European Commission Representation in the Republic of Croatia), Warren Krafchik (Director, International Budget Partnership, Washington), Stipe Župan (State Secretary, Ministry of Finance), and Vjekoslav Bratić and Mihaela Bronić (Institute of Public Finance).

 

It addressed the current state, trends and challenges in fiscal openness internationally, nationally and subnationally. The main goal of this virtual conference was to provide a state-of-the-art theoretical, empirical, and policy insights on the effects of fiscal transparency, participation and accountability on macro-fiscal, resource allocation, service delivery, governance, and development outcomes.

 

Keynote lectures were given by renowned professors James Alt, (Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, USA), María-Dolores Guillamón, (University of Murcia, Spain) and Paulo Jorge Reis Mourão, (University of Minho, Portugal). At the end of the program, a panel discussion on future directions for research on the impacts of fiscal openness, was held by Paolo de Renzio (Stanford University), Joachim Wehner (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), Claudio Ferraz (UBC and PUC-Rio), Stuti Khemani (World Bank) and Adil Ababou (Gates Foundation).

 

You can watch the conference and presentations online.