Transparency Initiative (EITI)

52 Macro Data: Global Statistical Analysis
The statistical analysis is based on a selection of World Development
Indicators (WDI) for both dependent and independent
intervening variables, which are regularly compiled
and published by the World Bank and EITI data on
country candidature and membership (as the independent
variables of interest), as published on its website.
Furthermore, the following datasets were considered to be
included:
``
``
``
``
``
Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)
Resource Governance Index (NRGI)
Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI)
International Center for Tax and Development – ICTD
(Sussex) database on public revenue
Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA)
Program
4. Foreign direct investments (net inflows) in percentage
of GDP
5. Informal payments to public officials: Informal payments
to public officials are the percentage of firms expected
to make informal payments to public officials to
"get things done" with regard to customs, taxes, licenses,
regulations, services, and the like.
6. Time to prepare and pay taxes
7. Tax revenues in percentage of GDP
World Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessments
(CPIA) for (all indexes range from 1 = low to 6 = high):
8. Business regulatory environment
However, due to either
9. Equity of public resource use rating
``
``
``
too many missing values for the 51 EITI countries and
the sample of 98 countries, and/or
the need to cover a time period of at least 10 years for
the regression model, and
in some cases, like PEFA, outdated data (e.g. for Afghanistan
most recent data from 2008)
those options needed to be discarded.
10. Fiscal policy rating
11. Quality of public administration rating
12. Trade rating
13. Transparency, accountability and corruption rating
Eventually, a total of 13 variables from the World Bank database
were analyzed, which were considered as potentially
depending on a country’s EITI candidature or membership
status. All definitions are taken from the World Bank
(http://data.worldbank.org/indicator):
1. Bribery incidence: Bribery incidence is the percentage
of firms experiencing at least one bribe payment request
across 6 public transactions dealing with utilities
access, permits, licenses, and taxes.
2. Business extent of disclosure index: Disclosure index
measures the extent to which investors are protected
through disclosure of ownership and financial information.
The index ranges from 0 to 10, with higher values
indicating more disclosure.
3. Discrepancy in expenditure estimate of GDP in local
currency units
Unfortunately, as for some of the independent variables also
for three of the assumed dependent variables, i.e. bribery
incidence, tax revenues and informal payments to public
officials, the database was too fragmented to provide
meaningful results. For reasons of limitations of data sources,
major explanatory variables are not included in the
model.
As a complement to GDP as an outcome variable, an alternative
wealth and well-being measurement such as the
Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) would be desirable, if data
is adequate. In addition to factoring in non-financial measures
of societal and environmental aspects, GPI also assesses
the depletion of natural resources as a factor in national
wealth, which is especially relevant in light of the EITI’s
focus on natural resource governance.
As the following tables show, the key issue is the absence of
significant results – and, of course, endogeneity. The results