Abstract
Illicit financial flows (IFFs) refer to movements between countries of resources that have been obtained, used or transferred illegally.
Illicit financial flows are included in the multilateral ‘Financing for Development’ and ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ agendas. For that reason in the Latin American region IFFs have received more attention than traditional capital flight: IFFs imply a global problem of the entry and exit of resources, while capital flight refers only to net exits, and despite some of its mechanisms being illegal, has been tolerated and even accepted to some degree as a legitimate way to hide wealth.
This entry summarizes the different IFF quantifications for Latin America related to total amounts and to specific products such as soy, banana and minerals. Some proposals from Latin American countries have been done to curb these flows, such as establishing a UN Intergovernmental Panel on Tax Issues, and creating a binding treaty that would curtail abuses on the part of multinational corporations.
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King, K. (2020). Illicit Financial Flows in Latin America. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_3115-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_3115-1
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