Financial Transparency Coalition

This week and next I am traveling to Austria. Following from this trip, I am writing this two-part blog series on Austrian economics, its successes, failures, and application to current dilemmas in economic theory and policy. In the past few years the world—and the United States in particular—has witnessed a resurgence of the term “Austrian economics.” Many of those who use it, including Ron Paul who declared we are “all Austrians now” after his third place finish in Iowa, are referring to a narrow segment of the body of thought. That segement might be better termed “libertarianism.” Other bloggers and...

This week Global Financial Integrity released their periodic estimate of worldwide illicit financial flows authored by Dev Kar and Sarah Freitas. The report finds the developing world exported an estimated US$859 billion in illicit financial flows in 2010. In case you like moving words, here’s a presentation I put together on what that number means. The GFI model of illicit financial flows includes two components: (1) an estimate of money that exits developing countries via trade channels (called trade mispricing) and (2) an estimate of money that leaves developing countries through other, private capital flows. Traditionally GFI has estimated the...

For some time, we’ve been exploring new ways to talk about the need for transparency in the extractive sector. Communications in this field isn’t always the most obvious thing. It can be tricky to present a complex – and sometimes dry – subject in an engaging and accessible manner. Behind the jargon and the polysyllabic words lies a genuine – and exciting – fight for justice. How do we express the scale of what is at stake?

Task Force member Global Financial Integrity released their newest report on illicit financial flows from the developing world last night. The report found that $5.86 trillion left the developing world due to crime, corruption, and tax evasion from 2001-2010, $859 billion in 2012 alone. The report uses a new, broader, methodology to estimate illicit financial flows, and the numbers should be considered very conservative. They also set up a very cool Explore page if you would like to delve deeper into the data.