Financial Transparency Coalition

In today’s post, we visit Thailand in Southeast Asia. Thailand is a democracy nestled between Myanmar, a harsh authoritarian regime, Laos, a single-party socialist republic, and Cambodia, a constitutional monarchy. Despite the dramatic military coup which occurred in 2006, Thailand has returned to a democratically elected government. According to the Economists Intelligence Unit, the country also has a well-developed media sector, though in recent years there have been problems relating to censorship and political interference. Thailand has seen dramatic improvements in infrastructure over the past decade, most notably in terms of mass transit networks in the capital, Bangkok. ...

Today Global Financial Integrity published a report called “Tax Revenue Loss due to Trade Mispricing.” Trade mispricing is a practice that is neither widely nor well-understood by most of the development community. Yet according to GFI estimates, this mechanism moves about $400 billion a year out of developing countries (for a more detailed description, see my blog On Tea and Taxes). The new paper finds that developing country governments lose about $100 billion a year in tax revenue to the practice of trade mispricing. This figure represents about 4.4% of the entire developing world’s government revenue. Admittedly, the...

Since the attempted bombing of Northwest flight 253 on Christmas day, there’s been a lot of chatter about Yemen. In case you don’t know, this is because the bomber was allegedly trained and equipped by an arm of al-Qaeda in Yemen. Joe Lieberman has called the country “tomorrow’s war” on terror and Stephen Colbert has noted the letters in Yemen, rearranged, spell “ENEMY.” Yemen is a startling example of how illicit financial flows are not just an obstacle to development, but also pose a stark danger to national security worldwide.

Last night I attended a dinner honoring New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, who has served the borough of Manhattan for thirty-four years. At the age of 90, he is retiring, which, as he has noted, is “25 years past the normal age.” Last night’s event honoring Mr. Morgenthau’s career of public service was hosted by Global Financial Integrity and The American Interest. As was made clear by the speeches of adoring Congressmen and Senators last night, Mr. Morgenthau has proven himself a dedicated public servant, in the truest sense of the word. Over his long...