On the Trail of Capital Flight from Africa

This book is a valuable resource for understanding the intricacies of capital flight. * J. E. Weaver, CHOICE *
Many developing countries continue to suffer significant resource outflows, largely due to illicit capital flight. On the trail of capital flight from Africa: The Takers and the Enablers — edited by Leonce Ndikumana and James Boyce — studies this blight in sub-Saharan Africa. The world has much to learn from their forensic analysis... The West's piecemeal approach to sanctions targeting individuals is recognized as costly, time-consuming and ineffectual. Instead, the editors recommend a pre-emptive, across-the-board effort to undermine transnational networks enabling illicit financial flows. This should begin with closing financial system loopholes. * Jomo Kwame Sundaram, IPS News Agency *
This important book should be read widely by anyone interested in African political economy as well as the global mechanisms of capital flight. While most work on capital flight focuses on aggregate figures, Ndikumana, Boyce and their co-authors provide cutting-edge analysis of three major African countries as well as of the destinations for stolen funds. Marrying the best available work on the economics of capital flight with insightful case studies, the book shows the importance of fine-grained qualitative analysis for an understanding of the consequences of capital flight for Africa and the global economy more broadly. * Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Professor of the International Politics of Africa, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford *
Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce have been at the forefront of research on illicit financial flows since before that term was even coined, and this book confirms it once again. But where Ndikumana and Boyce are most well known for their comprehensive quantitative analyses, here they have edited a volume that focuses deliberately on the experience of specific countries suffering illicit flows. The result, part investigative journalism and part academic analysis, is to bring the damage done to countries' governance into sharp focus. The book contributes powerfully to the case to understand illicit financial flows, facilitated by rich countries as they are, as a continuation of imperial extraction which robs people not only of resources but ultimately of the right to effective statehood. * Alex Cobham, Tax Justice Network *
Under the right conditions, external capital can help lift people out of poverty in poor, capital-scarce, places. However, the social benefit from capital inflows can largely vanish if local elites syphon-off the capital and park it elsewhere for themselves. Earlier Ndikumana-Boyce calculations exposed the alarming extent of illicit capital flight from Africa. Their new edited volume provides three detailed country case studies, pointing to better data for monitoring and better policies globally. The volume provides a welcome foundation for both further research and effective action to help assure that global capital flows reduce global poverty. * Martin Ravallion, Professor of Economics, Georgetown University, and former Director of the World Bank's Research Department *