Bibliometric and Trend Analysis of Budget Transparency

Over the last few decades, an integral part of public finance development is budget (fiscal) transparency and accountability. It is also in the focus of scientific interest and international organizations' activity. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of valuable empirical research on identifying key triggers and inhibitors of budget (fiscal) transparency and its cohesion with other concepts in public finance management. Thus, this research deals with the realization of several tasks: 1) identification of budget (fiscal) transparency genesis and its essence in modern terms; 2) clarification of its cohesion with other concepts in public finance management using modern tools of bibliometric analysis; 3) characteristics of a current state of budget transparency in Ukraine, identification problems and prospects in this sphere. The second task fulfillment is based on Google Ngram Viewer, Google Trends and VOSviewer bibliometric tools. Implementation of Google Ngram Viewer is aimed at popularity quantification of the concepts “budget transparency”, “fiscal transparency” and “budget accountability” in English Google books for 1960-2012. It defines budget (fiscal) transparency and accountability became the focus of scientific interest starting from 1960th, demonstrating an increase from the 1990th, and peaked in 2005. Google Trends analysis also showed that the peak of Internet users' interest in budget (fiscal) transparency issues was in 2005-2006. Moreover, Google Trends analysis and frequency of Scopus articles published on the budget (fiscal) transparency issues lead to the conclusion that this concept remains popular among both scientists and regular Internet users worldwide. VOSviewer analysis of 419 Scopus articles reveals that budget (fiscal) transparency closely connected with economic prosperity and sustainability at national and local levels, poverty elimination, environmental responsibility, democratic values implementation, fight against corruption, good governance, and especially the efficiency of public finance management, fiscal policy and government expenditures. Finally, analysis of budget transparency level in Ukraine based on Open Budget Survey 2019 allows concluding that despite the general improvement of the country score (from 54 to 63 points) in comparison with the previous Survey period, Ukraine still has problems with Mid-Year Review and Pre-Budget Statement.