Financial Transparency Coalition

Tuesday's top news stories from Global Financial Integrity

Greece's problems are so deep and structural that we there is no one cause or aggravating factor that you can point to and solve the problem by eliminating. However, there is plenty that we can do for Greece. We make it too difficult for Greece to track down corrupt money and either prevent it from fleeing the country or from being brought back home.

On a large scale, corruption undermines development and democracy, exacerbates poverty, erodes civil society, stifles social services, and worsens public health. When it involves cross-boarder flow of money, it is damaging to economies not just because of the underlying corrupt acts, but also because it deprives the country of both public and private resources—including financial capital—that might otherwise be diverted to productive activities. Most of the corruption that we talk about on this blog and in the general dialogue about corruption and economic development—concerns this sort of large-scale corruption. But there is another kind of corruption that is often overlooked:...