Originally published in 1987, The Flight of International Capital provides a fascinating comprehensive analysis of the history of international money movements. Taking 1931 as the turning point between old-style and modern methods of conducting monetary affairs, the book relates currency shifts and investment trends to political events. He deals with five eras in the history of international capital; the unsettled post-crash period 1931-1936; the flight of capital to the US before World War II; the dollar and Swiss Franc’s time as the only ‘hard monies’ till the late fifties; the emergence of the mark-dollar axis before 1971; and finally, the behaviour of floating currencies.
For centuries, the United States has been a magnet for human capital - ambitious, talented immigrants came to make their fortunes and stayed to pump wealth into the U.S. economy. Today America relies more than ever on immigrant brainpower: over half the PhDs working here are foreign born, as are nearly half the physicists, computer scientists, and mathematicians, and many of Silicon Valley's high-tech leaders. But, David Heenan warns, they may not be here long. In Flight Capital, Heenan describes how, within the past decade, America has gone from being the top importer of brainpower to a net exporter. Empowered by the globalization of technology, emerging economies from Iceland to India are using aggressive initiatives to attract top knowledge workers. In a reverse brain drain, hundreds of thousands of the best and brightest in America are returning to their native lands to pursue new opportunities. Heenan recounts the stories of dozens of emigrating professionals in an engaging way to explore the various factors - personal, cultural, economic, and political - that are fueling the exodus. human capital and its consequences for America, at a time when a shortage of talented labor is exacerbated by post-9/11 immigration restrictions. The outflow of brainpower, Heenan argues, threatens U.S. technological and economic preeminence, and even our security, unless quick action is taken. He proposes a dozen hard-hitting measures to correct the situation, both short and long term. Timely and compelling, Flight Capital focuses attention on whether America will continue as a world leader, and on the new forces at play in the global economic community.
A comprehensive thematic analysis of capital flight from Africa, it covers the role of safe havens, offshore financial centres, and banking secrecy in facilitating illicit financial flows and provides rich insights to policy makers interested in designing strategies to address the problems of capital flight and illicit financial flows.
Recent changes in technology, along with the opening up of many regions previously closed to investment, have led to explosive growth in the international movement of capital. Flows from foreign direct investment and debt and equity financing can bring countries substantial gains by augmenting local savings and by improving technology and incentives. Investing companies acquire market access, lower cost inputs, and opportunities for profitable introductions of production methods in the countries where they invest. But, as was underscored recently by the economic and financial crises in several Asian countries, capital flows can also bring risks. Although there is no simple explanation of the currency crisis in Asia, it is clear that fixed exchange rates and chronic deficits increased the likelihood of a breakdown. Similarly, during the 1970s, the United States and other industrial countries loaned OPEC surpluses to borrowers in Latin America. But when the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates to control soaring inflation, the result was a widespread debt moratorium in Latin America as many countries throughout the region struggled to pay the high interest on their foreign loans. International Capital Flows contains recent work by eminent scholars and practitioners on the experience of capital flows to Latin America, Asia, and eastern Europe. These papers discuss the role of banks, equity markets, and foreign direct investment in international capital flows, and the risks that investors and others face with these transactions. By focusing on capital flows' productivity and determinants, and the policy issues they raise, this collection is a valuable resource for economists, policymakers, and financial market participants.
On the Trail of Capital Flight from Africa investigates the dynamics of capital flight from Angola, Côte d'Ivoire, and South Africa, countries that have witnessed large-scale illicit financial outflows in recent decades. Quantitative, qualitative, and institutional analysis for each country is used to examine the modus operandi of capital flight; that is, the 'who', 'how', and 'where' dimensions of the phenomenon. 'Who' refers to major domestic and foreign players; 'how' refers to mechanisms of capital acquisition, transfer, and concealment; and 'where' refers to the destinations of capital flight and the transactions involved. The evidence reveals a complex network of actors and enablers involved in orchestrating and facilitating capital flight and the accumulation of private wealth in offshore secrecy jurisdictions. This underscores the reality that capital flight is a global phenomenon, and that measures to curtail it are a shared responsibility for Africa and the global community. Addressing the problem of capital flight and related issues such as trade misinvoicing, money laundering, tax evasion, and theft of public assets by political and economic elites will require national and global efforts with a high level of coordination.
Capital flight - the unrecorded export of capital from developing countries - often represents a significant cost for developing countries. It also poses a puzzle for standard economic theory, which would predict that poorer countries be importers of capital due to its scarcity. This situation is often reversed, however, with capital fleeing poorer countries for wealthier, capital-abundant locales. Using a common methodology for a set of case studies on the size, causes and consequences of capital flight in developing countries, the contributors address the extent of capital flight, its effects, and what can be done to reverse it. Case studies of Brazil, China, Chile, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and the Middle East provide rich descriptions of the capital flight phenomena in a variety of contexts. The volume includes a detailed description of capital flight estimation methods, a chapter surveying the impact of financial liberalization, and several chapters on controls designed to solve the capital flight problem. The first book devoted to the careful calculation of capital flight and its historical and policy context, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars in the areas of international finance and economic development.
These papers provide a cutting-edge overview of general issues regarding world capital markets, experience in developing countries, and capital market regulation, which many economists believe could turn into the number one topic in international business and economics.
The growing integration of capital markets has strengthened incentives for greater international coordination of economic and financial policies. Structural changes in these financial market, however, may have undermined the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policy and complicated market access by developing countries. These are among the findings of this study of capital flows in the 1970s and the 1980s.
Mounting external debt and large-scale capital flight have been at the forefront of Africa's economic problems since the 1980s. External Debt and Capital Flight in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by S. Ibi Ajayi and Mohsin S. Khan, takes a penetrating look at debt and capital flight during the 1990s in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. The book describes the size and composition of debt in the selected countries and examines the causes of the debt buildup. It also assesses the extent of capital flight and suggests ways of stemming the flight of financial resources.
