The New Key Drivers to Improve the Open Government Performances: Some Empirical Evidences from Italy

Aim and scope of the paper is to demonstrate how an effective and efficient management applied to the Public Sector can improve the administrative transparency, an evidence – this last – now increasingly seen in the practices carried out by Public Administrations on their own websites. In adherence to the international literature on the issues addressed by the research, the work seeks to provide an empirical and theoretical answer to the following research question: is it possible to identify the presence of a potential correlation between efficiency and transparency, by a quantitative analysis applied to different Italian Public Sectors? . The actual contribution of the study is focused in emphasizing that the administrative efficiency – in a long-term perspective – can be considered not only a tool for the containment of public expenditure, but also a valuable means for improving administrative transparency. The empirical findings suggest the presence of a persistent heterogeneity of situations in which the most virtuous administrations in open government are those who for many years have pursued policies oriented to the administrative efficiency.