Fiscal illusion Mourao (2008) attempts to quantify fiscal illusion empirically for almost 70 democracies since 1960. Fiscal illusion Fiscal illusion is a public choice theory of government expenditure first developed by the Italian economist Amilcare Puviani in his 1903 book "Teoria della illusione finanziaria" ("Theory of Financial Illusion" (not yet translated into English, but translated into German in 1960 under the title "Die Illusionen in der öffentlichen Finanzwirtschaft", Berlin: Dunker & Humblot, 1960)). Fiscal illusion suggests that when government revenues are not completely transparent or are not fully perceived by taxpayers, then the cost of government is seen to be less than
Fiscal transparency which focuses on 8 key reports centred around the budget. The term budget transparency is generally not used to refer to as wide a concept as fiscal transparency. Fiscal openness refers to fiscal transparency together with direct public participation in fiscal policy formulation and implementation. Following the global financial crisis international fiscal transparency initiatives have increasingly incorporated public participation as a key element in order to promote improved policy formulation and implementation, and to strengthen accountability for fiscal management (see below). The 1997 East Asian financial crisis first prompted the international community to set out a comprehensive codification of what