Aldo Pavan

German and Italian Municipalities’ Internal Control Systems: Convergence to a Neo-Weberian Reform Pattern?

This article contributes to the debate on convergence/divergence of public management reforms toward the new public management (NPM) paradigm by analyzing the internal control systems (ICSs) in Germany and Italy. Specifically, the study describes the ICS established at the normative level in German and Italian municipalities and evaluates the extent of the decisional convergence to NPM, using the INTOSAI guidelines. Although similarities between the two ICSs and the INTOSAI guidelines emerged, decisional convergence is not demonstrated. Instead, these countries seem to converge to a Neo-Weberian reform pattern since they are cautious in the introduction of new managerial tools and they maintain their domestic original ICS.

Analysing Corruption: Effects on the Transparency of Public Administrations

There is a vast body of literature supporting the claim that the availability and accessibility of information play a vital role in contrasting corruption. Bastida and Benito (2007) demonstrate that the less corrupt a country is, the higher its level of budget transparency is, entailing that is not transparency which curbs corruption but rather the other way around. In this latter perspective the present study tries to contribute to the debate about transparency and corruption through the analysis of a case related to the diffusion of corruption in the twenty Italian regions. The study demonstrates that in regions with higher levels of corruption public administrations commitment towards transparency is lower compared to regions with inferior corruption levels.

Fund Accounting from the Italian Early Tradition to the U.S. GAAP for Governments

ABSTRACT Surprising correspondences emerge from the parallel investigation of fund accounting practices in Italian entities until the late nineteenth century and in the contemporary U.S. public sector. The analysis attempts to interpret similarities and differences in light of dissimilar environmental features, and wonders if the Italian tradition could have some explanatory capability on the U.S. present standards. The “fund” concept and its use are strictly similar; they are founded on information needs for governance and internal control. Contemporary requirements for democracy and transparency, and opportunities coming from modern ICT tools bring U.S. organizations to be accountable to the citizenry.