Reducing firms’ financial constraints can be an important element for economic growth. Previous scholars have documented various factors that affect firms’ ability to access finance (e.g. Lambert et al., 2007, p. 385). In this study, we investigate the impact of financial reporting credibility in reducing firms’ financial constraints. In addition, we study the role that rule of law at a country level have on the above stated association. We hypothesize that financial reporting credibility decreases firms’ financial constraints. Then, we propose that the ability of financial reporting credibility to reduce financial constraints weakens when rule of law (at a country level) decreases. This is the first study to investigate how the association between financial reporting credibility and financial constraints are affected by rule of law on a country level, to the authors’ knowledge. The study uses 52,381 firms operating in 98 countries that responded to the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys between the time period 2006 to 2015. Financial constraints are measured through a variable that takes into consideration the perceived amount of obstacles firms are facing in their current operations and the proxy for financial credibility is whether firms have been audited or not. Our moderating term is the World Bank’s rule of law index. By using both regression and matching analysis, we find a significant negative association between financial credibility and financial constraints. This indicates that increased financial reporting credibility leads to less financial constraints for firms. For the moderating effect of the rule of law, the results are insignificant. However, we observe that when the level of rule of law is high, increased financial credibility leads to minor improvements in access to external finance.

Le droit public financier est congénitalement lié à la question de la transparence budgétaire. Notre entrée dans la modernité politique s’est en effet accompagnée d’une réelle volonté de garantir la clarté de la gestion des deniers publics. Pourtant, aujourd’hui encore, la réalisation de cette transparence n’est pas totalement aboutie. Ainsi, sa conceptualisation, qui est un préalable indispensable à sa mise en œuvre effective, est loin d’être évidente. Alors que l’on pouvait légitimement s’attendre à ce que la force actuelle de l’exigence de transparence lui assure un ancrage assez aisé, les obstacles sont encore nombreux. D’ailleurs, ils ne méritent pas tous d’être critiqués. Il existe des motifs légitimes pour une part, sinon d’opacité, du moins de discrétion pour certaines activités sensibles de l’État. En revanche, tous les autres cas d’opacité budgétaire sont illégitimes. Malgré tout, la transparence a réussi à s’affirmer à la fois comme une finalité de notre ordonnancement budgétaire – à laquelle concourent les prérogatives financières du Parlement et les principes budgétaires classiques – mais aussi comme un moyen d’action indispensable à la bonne gestion des finances publiques et à la crédibilité financière de l’État. Quant à sa concrétisation, la notion de transparence budgétaire n’est pas clairement reconnue par notre droit positif qui devrait pourtant, à notre avis, en faire un objectif de valeur constitutionnelle. Pour ce qui est de sa mise en œuvre pratique, elle reste encore perfectible, même si des progrès significatifs ont été enregistrés depuis l’entrée en vigueur de la loi organique relative aux lois de finances du 1er août 2001. / Public finance law is naturally linked to the issue of budget transparency. Our transition into the modern political society is indeed accompanied by a genuine desire to ensure clarity in the management of public funds. Yet, even today, the fulfilment of this transparency is not completely successful. Thus, its conceptualization, which is an essential prerequisite for its effective implementation is far from being obvious. While one could legitimately expect that the current force of the transparency requirement guarantees a relatively easy anchorage, obstacles are still numerous. Besides that, they do not all deserve to be criticized. There are legitimate grounds to some extent, if not a lack of transparency, at least a level of discretion for certain sensitive activities of the State. In contrast, all other cases of no budget transparency are illegitimate. Despite this, transparency has managed to assert itself both as an end to our budget scheduling – to which the financial prerogatives of the Parliament and the traditional budget principles take part – but also as an essential means of action to better manage the public finances and the financial credibility of the state. As for its implementation, the notion of budgetary transparency is not clearly recognized in the French positive law which should, in our opinion, make it an objective of constitutional value. With regard to its practical implementation, it is still perfectible, even though significant progress has been made since the organic law on finance laws of August 1st, 2001 came into force.