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Views from the Center

CGD experts offer ideas and analysis to improve international development policy. Also check out our Global Health blog and US Development Policy blog.

 

November 16, 2015

US Treasury Under Secretary Nathan Sheets Calls for Action on De-risking at CGD Report Launch Event

Last Thursday, Under Secretary of the US Treasury Nathan Sheets spoke at CGD about anti–money laundering policies and the problem of de-risking, in connection with the launch of a new CGD working group report on the unintended consequences of anti–money laundering policies for poor countries. Sheets’s comments were consistent with the report’s key recommendations including the need for better data and for clearer guidance from financial regulators and standards setters.

Vijaya Ramachandran and Matt Juden
November 9, 2015

Are Anti–Money Laundering Policies Hurting Poor Countries? – New CGD Working Group Report

Next week, the G-20 Leaders will meet in Antalya, Turkey, to continue their conversation about the importance of financial inclusion in achieving strong, sustainable, balanced economic growth. One item on the agenda will be the cost of remittances. In 2009, G-8 Leaders set a goal of reducing remittance costs to 5 percent within 5 years, roughly a 5 percentage point decrease.

Clay Lowery and Vijaya Ramachandran
July 12, 2015

How Much Do We Really Know about Multinational Tax Avoidance and How Much Is it Really Worth? Comments Welcome!

At the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa this week, the issue of international cooperation to address ‘tax dodging’ and illicit flows will be higher up the agenda than ever before. Credit for this is due in no small part to the various non-governmental organizations that have built up public consciousness and pressure through sustained campaigns focused on the tax affairs of multinational companies.

Maya Forstater and Vijaya Ramachandran
June 8, 2015

Talking about Tax Is Taxing: Pretending It Is Simple Will Hurt the Poor

Here’s an obvious truth: tax lost to trade misinvoicing in Africa does not equal tax lost to transfer mispricing by multinational corporations in Sierra Leone, which does not equal lost health-care spending. Unfortunately, a policy paper released on Tuesday by Oxfam makes exactly these equivalences. This sort of imprecision is widespread, and it’s not going to help the poor.

Matt Juden, Maya Forstater and Vijaya Ramachandran
May 27, 2015

Extending the UK Charity Commission’s Anti-Terror Powers Could Backfire

During the Queen’s Speech, newly re-elected British Prime Minister David Cameron proposed an extended counter-extremism bill in order to confront “head-on the poisonous Islamist extremist ideology.” A press release from the Prime Minister’s office said that the Bill would give new powers to the UK’s Charity Commission to identify charities that use their income to fund extremism and terrorism.

Vijaya Ramachandran and Matt Juden
May 14, 2015

How Can We Make Illicit Finance Less Illicit?

The truth is: we don’t know much about illicit finance. We don’t have exact figures on the volume of transactions which could fall within this category, and we also don’t know whether these transactions have any significant impact in developing countries and elsewhere. Adding up estimates of different types of illicit flows provides lurid headline figures (one trillion dollars a year) but more specific analysis is needed to determine whether, and how much, better policies might improve development.

Petra Krylová, Owen Barder and Vijaya Ramachandran
February 26, 2015

Yellen to Congress: US Anti–Money Laundering Policies Hurt the Poor

Rich countries’ anti-money laundering rules are “causing a great deal of hardship” by making it very costly for migrants to send money home. So testified Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen before lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee in Washington this week. It’s a problem a CGD Working Group is looking at right now: the de-banking of remittance organizations by many banks that cite burdensome compliance requirements.

Clay Lowery and Vijaya Ramachandran

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