Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Last month, Abhijit Banerjee won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, together with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. Here’s a quick introduction to almost all of Banerjee’s publications. The range of topics is breathtaking, from land reform to corruption to microcredit to international aid to the fundamental nature of poverty.
When companies and governments sit down to negotiate the terms for major deals with the private sector, workhorse spreadsheet models are what underpin projections of revenues, costs, and profits over time. Both companies and government agencies should have their own models. But in practice, on the government side, there is often no model at all. And even where there is, they are poorly understood, narrowly shared, and rarely if ever updated, leaving the public completely in the dark about how public assets and deals are managed.
Government contracts are worth trillions of dollars. Publishing contracting information is critical to enabling fair competition, allowing public scrutiny, and reducing opportunities for corruption. But when is it legitimate to redact commercially sensitive information from these documents?
In November 2015, CGD published a report titled Unintended Consequences of Anti–Money Laundering Policies for Poor Countries. Today we release a follow-up to that report. Policy Responses to De-risking: Progress Report on the CGD Working Group’s 2015 Recommendations takes stock of accomplishments to date, notes where work remains, and recommends concrete actions for international institutions, governments, banks, and others to continue addressing de-risking.
“Illicit financial flows” means dirty money crossing borders. It is an umbrella term which covers diverse actors including organised crime groups, business people making bribes, political leaders engaging in grand corruption, and major tax evaders hiding undeclared wealth. What they all have in common is that what they are doing is illegal (although they may be getting away with it), and they often use opaque international networks of legal entities, bank accounts, and property holdings to facilitate and store ill-gotten gains. There is a clear development case for rich countries to act to prevent their financial systems being used as havens for illicit financial flows that harm developing countries.
CGD and Brookings recently co-hosted Former Finance Minister of Nigeria and Distinguished Fellow Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to discuss her new book, Fighting Corruption is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines. The book is part memoir, part how-to, as she draws on her years of experience as Nigeria’s Finance Minister to describe the dangers of fighting corruption and how best to do it. I drew four main takeaways from our conversation.
The SDGs include a target to “significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organised crime”. However, there is no globally agreed upon definition for “illicit financial flows.” My new CGD paper looks at why there is so much disagreement and confusion over this term.
Public-Private Partnership models continue to proliferate, backed by multilateral development banks old and new. But the volume of PPPs in developing countries has stagnated since the global financial crisis, and they won’t deliver unless they are designed and implemented well. Making more and better public-private investments will take a far greater commitment to transparency from participants in the deals. Financiers—MDBs in particular—should take the lead.
Events are in tremendous flux in Zimbabwe after the non-coup committed by the military last week and the resignation of President Robert Mugabe on November 21. It’s not too early for the international community to start considering constructive steps to help the country get through the inevitable transition and back on a path to democracy and prosperity.
“Some viewers may find this content distressing” is how Oxfam GB caveats its new video on corporate tax “dodging.” But what I find most disturbing is how it oversells tax transparency as a panacea for domestic resource mobilisation in developing countries.
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