Capital "flight": the global scenario (2002-2010)

Abstract

This article examines two crucial matters that have undeniably emerged during the crisis: capital flight and its indispensable instrument, tax havens. The first part of the article emphasizes the enormous "north to south" transfers, which repeatedly reach higher peaks in moments of crisis such as that presently underway. The article later analyzes the damaging characteristics of illicit capital flows and the grave erosion to which these condemn tax systems. These issues are in large part a consequence of the substantially unfettered and opaque situation of multinational firms and global financial corporations. The analysis of these operations, while complicated, is central in the explanation of the opacity of globalizedfinances, the conduct of multinational firms in regards to financial and tax decisions, and without a doubt, the enormous drains of resources and sharp volatility of the capital flows to which the economies of the South are subjected.