It is widely believed that the adoption of quality public sector accounting practices can assist in reducing corruption. In theory, accounting reform, especially the shift from cash-to accrual-based methods, leads to the production of much improved financial information, which ultimately can be used by citizens to hold government more accountable and limit corruption. Empirical evidence from crosscountry analyses appears to support the theoretical predictions. We investigate the impact of accounting practices on corruption among districts in Indonesia. We use external financial audits to measure the adoption of reforms and the number of corruption case court convictions as our proxy for corruption. We estimate Poisson regression models using instrumental variable techniques to identify the causal effects of adopting accrual-based accounting procedures on corruption. We show that the employment of improved accounting methods is strongly associated with declining corruption. However, after accommodating the endogeneity of accounting practices, we determine that reform adoption has no effect on corruption. K E Y W O R D S corruption, Indonesia, public sector accounting reform 1 | INTRODUCTION It is widely believed that the adoption of high-quality public sector accounting practices can assist in reducing corruption (Jeppesen, 2019). In theory, accounting reform, especially the shift from cash-to accrual-based procedures, leads to the production of much improved financial information, which ultimately can be used by citizens to hold government accountable and limit corruption (Changwony & Paterson, 2019). More specifically, accrual-based accounting and reporting systems can correct the information asymmetries that exist between politicians and citizens, thereby improving transparency and enabling voters to monitor elected officials more rigorously. It is this improved transparency and enhanced monitoring that can help constrain public sector corruption, it is argued (Banker & Patton, 1987; Stanley et al., 2008). Empirical examination of the relationship between accounting practices and corruption is not particularly far advanced. The literature offers only a few examples, all of which investigate the association between improved accounting methods, operationalized via a variety of different proxies, and perceived corruption in cross
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