Search results

This article will attempt to answer the following question: what has been done to prevent corruption and promote a “good government” in Latin America, what are the results and what explains the current situation? After analyzing very different experiences, the following could be stated: (1) there is at least a formal concern for promoting integrity in several countries, but there are problems of diagnosis and formulation; (2) the examples of implementation failures are far too many in Latin America. In any case, the most important factor explaining failures of design and implementation is the presence of a social trap and a political trap. The social trap is expressed by the incoherence of society itself, which demands honesty from Government, but in practice incentivizes corruption by paying bribes, breaching rules, and demanding privileges within the framework of clientelist networks. The political trap emerges from the strong path dependency effect resulting from the consolidation of patronage or clientelist networks.

This paper aims to analyse the level of informative transparency among Spanish political parties and political foundations, according to general and descriptive information (e.g. contact, ideas and values, electoral programmes, members, etc.) and economic, governance and financial information.

The situation of the parties in each year is represented by a biplot, which is a graphical representation of a multivariate sample. The data for this analysis were obtained from the reports published by Fundación Compromiso y Transparencia (Foundation for Integrity and Transparency) for 2011 and 2012.

This paper evidences the existence of serious problems of opacity, especially in relation to financial information (balance sheet, income statement, annual accounts and audit report) and information on the fulfilment of goals and programmes (management report and compliance report).

This is the first attempt to analyse statistically the level of transparency of political parties and foundations, showing the need for a robust control system and for mechanisms to penalise conduct that limits citizens’ access to public information.

Examinar si las firmas no financieras que estuvieron registradas en la Superintendencia de Valores y Seguros de Chile (SVS) manipularon la cifra de beneficios para evitar reportar pérdidas o disminuciones en las ganancias, durante el período 2010-2014.

Se analizó la distribución de los beneficios netos y la distribución de los cambios en los beneficios netos de las firmas, de acuerdo con la metodología de Burgstahler y Dichev (1997).

Los resultados mostraron frecuencias inusualmente bajas de pequeñas pérdidas y de pequeñas disminuciones en los beneficios, y frecuencias inusualmente altas de pequeñas utilidades y de pequeños incrementos en las ganancias. Ambos resultados fueron estadísticamente significativos.

El estudio presentó evidencia de posibles prácticas de earnings management para evitar reportar pérdidas o disminuciones en el beneficio neto durante el período 2010-2014. Estos resultados permitirían identificar empresas “sospechosas” de earnings management, y aumentarían la probabilidad de detectar las firmas que manipularon al alza el beneficio reportado en los estados financieros o que —en un caso extremo— cometieron un fraude aún no revelado.

Los resultados de este tipo de estudios podrían ser útiles para focalizar actividades de monitorización y fiscalización para una mayor transparencia en el mercado bursátil.

Manipulación del beneficio contable, Distribución de frecuencias, Beneficio neto, Pérdida, Umbral de beneficios.

Trabajo de investigación

This paper aims to examine whether a sample of non-financial Chilean firms performed earnings management to avoid the decreases and losses in the earnings during the 2010-2014 period.

The analysis is undertaken using the distributions of earnings changes and earnings, according to Burgstahler and Dichev (1997) methodology.

The results showed unusually low frequencies of small losses and small declines in earnings and unusually high frequencies of small benefits and small increases in earnings. Both results were statistically significant.

The study presents evidence of possible earnings management activity to avoid reporting losses and earnings decreases during the period 2010-2014. These results would allow to identify “suspicious” companies of earnings management and would increase the likelihood of detecting firms that managed upside the reported earnings or that – in an extreme case – would be committing a fraud not disclosed.

The results of these types of studies would be useful to carry out monitoring and control activities, to increase transparency in the stock market.

In the decades following Chile's 1990 return to democracy, successive governments adopted pioneering reforms aimed at modernizing the state and strengthening democratic governance. This chapter discusses the major developments within Chile's public sector since 1990, with an emphasis on reforms affecting the civil service and public sector management. The politics of the reform process was notable for successful consensus building and led to a more meritocratic, professionally managed public employment system. This chapter also provides an overview of initiatives to strengthen accountability through greater transparency and citizen participation in government, as well as the major public sector management reforms adopted during the last three decades.

Uncertainty is one of the principal features of public administration in Colombia. Therefore, presenting a clear and consistent analysis is difficult. This uncertainty exists alongside interesting efforts to modernize institutions. Among the challenges faced by public administration in Colombia, we find corruption, illegal bands of drug traffickers, and the lack of trust between critical actors involved in governance. The aim of this chapter is to share an analysis that illustrates the difficulties and contradictions faced by those working in the public sector.

“Colombia is a legal social state organized in the form of a unitary republic, decentralized, with the autonomy of its territorial units, democratic, participatory, and pluralistic, based on respect of human dignity, on the work and solidarity of the individuals who belong to it, and the predominance of the general interest” (National Constitution, 1^st Article).

“Colombia is a legal social state organized in the form of a unitary republic, decentralized, with the autonomy of its territorial units, democratic, participatory, and pluralistic, based on respect of human dignity, on the work and solidarity of the individuals who belong to it, and the predominance of the general interest” (National Constitution, 1^st Article).

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the profile of public administration concerning its capacity to authoritatively assign values to a society, and in particular to the political system in Mexico. Many of the recent transformations in the Mexican public administration have occurred in a context in which a democratic opening of the political system has been the main trait of public life. This is the main light under which these changes in Mexico's federal public administration in recent years should be read.

The article explores the structural features of both the government and the federal public administration in Mexico. In particular, the transformation of the administrative apparatus not only in quantitative but also in qualitative terms is explained as a result of a change in the balance between the public and private sectors in recent decades, as well as the experience of the Professional Career Service and its impact on public officials in Mexico. We examine the links of the bureaucracy with political parties and civil society, as well as the political relationships within the public administration itself. We also describe accountability within the federal public administration. We explore recent reform and change processes in Mexico's administrative apparatus. Finally, some considerations are given to the opportunities and challenges facing the contemporary Mexican public administration as a result of having huge problems and at the same time partial solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze if the composition and activity of the appointment and remuneration committee have a significant effect in the remunerations of the members of the board of directors.

To achieve the paper's objective the authors proposed four hypotheses in order to analyze the repercussions of independent, institutional and executive directors in the Appointment and Retribution Committee (ARC) and its activity in the directors’ remunerations.

The results put into evidence that the composition (independent, institutional and executive members) of the ARC is not associated with the variation of the directors remuneration mean, while the activity of the ARC influences positively this remuneration mean, contrary to what was expected.

The ARC in Spain is not effective in fixating the directors’ remunerations.

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar si la configuración y actividad de las comisiones de nombramientos y remuneraciones (CNR) tienen un efecto significativo en las remuneraciones de los miembros del consejo de administración.

Para alcanzar el objetivo del artículo hemos planteado cuatro hipótesis con la finalidad de analizar la repercusión de los consejeros independientes, dominicales y ejecutivos de las CNR y la actividad de las mismas en las remuneraciones de los consejeros.

Los resultados ponen de manifiesto que la composición (miembros independientes, dominicales y ejecutivos) de las CNR no se asocian con la variación de las remuneraciones medias de los consejeros, mientras que la actividad de las CNR influye de manera positiva, contrario a lo pronosticado, en las variaciones de las retribuciones medias de los consejeros.

Las CNR en España no son efectivas en la fijación de las retribuciones de los consejeros.