The use of public sector (financial) reporting information by Politicians

In the last decades, reforms of public sector accounting have happened in several countries worldwide, namely toward the adoption of the international standards, IPSAS. These reforms claim, among other benefits, allowing for more and richer information to be available for better accountability and decision-making in the public sector setting. Accordingly, considering that politicians are decision-makers and have accountability duties to the citizens, questions may be raised regarding the use of financial information, namely that coming from financial reports, by politicians. This talk summarizes the state of the art in terms of a project that has sought to analyze the use of financial information by politicians in Portugal, so far focusing in the central government level anc in the Parliament.