Publication: Potential Gains from Capital Flight Repatriation for Sub-Saharan African Countries
Loading...
Date
2009-08-01
ISSN
Published
2009-08-01
Author(s)
Ndikumana, Leonce
Editor(s)
Abstract
Despite the recent increase in capital flows to Sub-Saharan Africa, the region remains largely marginalized in financial globalization and chronically dependent on official development aid. And with the potential decline in the level of official development assistance in a context of global financial crisis, the need to increase domestic resources mobilization as well as non-debt generating external resources is critical now more than ever before. However, the debate on resource mobilization has overlooked an important untapped source of funds consisting of the massive stocks of private wealth stashed in Western financial centers, a substantial part of which left the region in the form of capital flight. This paper argues that the repatriation of flight capital should take a more prominent place in this debate from a moral standpoint and for clear economic reasons. On the moral side, the argument is that a large proportion of the capital flight legitimately belongs to the Africans and therefore must be restituted to the legitimate claimants. The economic argument is that repatriation of flight capital will propel the sub-continent on a higher sustainable growth path while preserving its financial stability and without mortgaging the welfare of its future generations through external borrowing. The analysis in the paper demonstrates quantitatively that the gains from repatriation are large and dominate the expected benefits from other sources such as debt relief. It is estimated that if only a quarter of the stock of capital flight was repatriated to Sub-Saharan Africa, the region would go from trailing to leading other developing regions in terms of domestic investment, thus initiating a big-push -led sustainable long-term economic growth. The paper proposes some strategies for inducing capital flight repatriation, but cautions that the success of this program is contingent on strong political will on the part of African and Western governments and effective coordination and cooperation at the global level.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Ndikumana, Leonce; Fofack, Hippolyte. 2009. Potential Gains from Capital Flight Repatriation for Sub-Saharan African Countries. Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 5024. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4216 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Future of Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-15)Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a critical issue with far-reaching socioeconomic implications that extend well beyond environmental concerns. Among the most pressing challenges is its impact on global poverty. This paper projects the potential impacts of unmitigated climate change on global poverty rates between 2023 and 2050. Building on a study that provided a detailed analysis of how temperature changes affect economic productivity, this paper integrates those findings with binned data from 217 countries, sourced from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. By simulating poverty rates and the number of poor under two climate change scenarios, the paper uncovers some alarming trends. One of the primary findings is that the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide could be nearly doubled due to climate change. In all scenarios, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to bear the brunt, contributing the largest number of poor people, with estimates ranging between 40.5 million and 73.5 million by 2050. Another significant finding is the disproportionate impact of inequality on poverty. Even small increases in inequality can lead to substantial rises in poverty levels. For instance, if every country’s Gini coefficient increases by just 1 percent between 2022 and 2050, an additional 8.8 million people could be pushed below the international poverty line by 2050. In a more extreme scenario, where every country’s Gini coefficient increases by 10 percent between 2022 and 2050, the number of people falling into poverty could rise by an additional 148.8 million relative to the baseline scenario. These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive climate policies that not only mitigate environmental impacts but also address socioeconomic vulnerabilities.Publication Exports, Labor Markets, and the Environment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)What is the environmental impact of exports? Focusing on 2000–20, this paper combines customs, administrative, and census microdata to estimate employment elasticities with respect to exports. The findings show that municipalities that faced increased exports experienced faster growth in formal employment. The elasticities were 0.25 on impact, peaked at 0.4, and remained positive and significant even 10 years after the shock, pointing to a long and protracted labor market adjustment. In the long run, informal employment responds negatively to export shocks. Using a granular taxonomy for economic activities based on their environmental impact, the paper documents that environmentally risky activities have a larger share of employment than environmentally sustainable ones, and that the relationship between these activities and exports is nuanced. Over the short run, environmentally risky employment responds more strongly to exports relative to environmentally sustainable employment. However, over the long run, this pattern reverses, as the impact of exports on environmentally sustainable employment is more persistent.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication The Asymmetric Bank Distress Amplifier of Recessions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-11)One defining feature of financial crises, evident in U.S. and international data, is asymmetric bank distress—concentrated losses on a subset of banks. This paper proposes a model in which shocks to borrowers’ productivity dispersion lead to asymmetric bank losses. The framework exhibits a “bank distress amplifier,” exacerbating economic downturns by causing costly bank failures and raising uncertainty about the solvency of banks, thereby pushing banks to deleverage. Quantitative analysis shows that the bank distress amplifier doubles investment decline and increases the spread by 2.5 times during the Great Recession compared to a standard financial accelerator model. The mechanism helps explain how a seemingly small shock can sometimes trigger a large crisis.Publication Impact of Heat Waves on Learning Outcomes and the Role of Conditional Cash Transfers(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)This paper evaluates the impact of higher temperatures on learning outcomes in Peru. The results suggest that 1 degree above 20°C is equivalent to 7 and 6 percent of a standard deviation of what a student learns in a year for math and reading tests, respectively. These results hold true when the main specification is changed, splitting the sample, collapsing the data at school level, and using other climate specifications. The paper aims to improve understanding of how to deal with the impacts of climate change on learning outcomes in developing countries. The evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer programs can mitigate the negative effects of higher temperatures on students’ learning outcomes in math and reading.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Banking Flows and Financial Crisis : Financial Interconnectedness and Basel III Effects(2011-08-01)This paper examines the factors that determine banking flows from advanced economies to emerging markets. In addition to the usual determinants of capital flows in terms of global push and local pull factors, it examines the role of bilateral factors, such as growth differentials and economic size, as well as contagion factors and measures of the depth in financial interconnectedness between lenders and borrowers. The analysis finds profound differences across regions. In particular, in spite of the severe impact of the global financial crisis, banking flows in emerging Europe stand out as a more stable region than is the case in other developing regions. Assuming that the determinants of banking flows remain unchanged in the presence of structural changes, the authors use these results to explore the short-term implications of Basel III capital regulations on banking flows to emerging markets.Publication Does Higher Openness Cause More Real Exchange Rate Volatility?(2009-04-01)The "New Open Economy Macroeconomics" argues that: (a) non-monetary factors have gained importance in explaining exchange rate volatility, and (b) trade and financial openness may have a potential role of mitigating and/or amplifying real and nominal shocks to real exchange rates. The goal of the present paper is to examine the ability of trade and financial openness to exacerbate or mitigate real exchange rate volatility. The authors collected information on the real effective exchange rate, its fundamentals, and (outcome and policy measures of) trade and financial openness for a sample of industrial and developing countries for the period 1975-2005. Using instrumental variables techniques, the analysis finds that: (a) High real exchange rate volatility is the result of highly volatile productivity shocks, and sharp oscillations in monetary and fiscal policy shocks. (b) Countries more integrated with international markets of goods and services tend to display more stable real exchange rate fluctuations. (c) Financial openness seems to amplify the fluctuations in real exchange rates. (d) The composition of trade and capital flows plays a role in explaining the smoothing properties of trade and financial openness. Although the former is mainly driven by manufacturing trade, the latter depends on the share of debt (and equity) in total foreign liabilities. (e) Financial openness would attenuate (magnify) real exchange rate volatility, the greater the share of equity (debt) in foreign liabilities. (f) The composition of flows also matters for explaining the smoothing properties of trade and financial openness in periods of currency crisis.Publication Global Development Finance 2008 : The Role of International Banking, Volume 2. Summary and Country Tables(2008)This report is comprised of two volumes. Global Development Finance (GDF) 2008 volume one provides analysis of key trends and prospects, including coverage of the role of international banking in developing countries. Volume two provides summary and country tables contain statistical tables on the external debt of the 134 countries that report public and publicly guaranteed debt under the Debtor Reporting System (DRS). It also includes tables of selected debt and resource flow statistics for individual reporting countries as well as summary tables for regional and income groups. It is the culmination of a year-long process that requires extensive cooperation from people and organizations around the globe-national central banks, ministries of finance, major multilateral organizations, and many departments of the World Bank.Publication Financial Sector Assessment : Turkey(Washington, DC, 2007-09)A joint International Monetary Fund-World Bank team conducted an assessment of Turkey's financial system in connection with the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) through missions in April, August-September 2006 and March, 2007. This report provides a summary of the main findings of the assessment and the policy priorities identified. The main objective of the FSAP is to assist the authorities to assess potential areas of vulnerability and current initiatives to develop the local financial sector. This report gives an overall assessment of the financial sector in Turkey. The report gives an updated overall assessment, economic background, discusses the banking sector, financial conditions and stress testing, non-bank financial institutions, pension funds, capital markets and the financial infrastructure of Turkey.Publication Dealing with the Challenges of Macro Financial Linkages in Emerging Markets(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013-10-11)The 2008 financial crisis has highlighted the challenges associated with global financial integration and emphasized the importance of macro financial linkages. In the financial sector, attention is being directed toward macro prudential regulations that are geared toward the stability of the financial system as a whole. The Third Basel Accord (Basel III) aims to dampen the pro-cyclicality of the financial sector and to reduce cross sectional systemic risks partly by introducing measures to address liquidity and issues of banks being too big to fail. In the macro arena, the facts that price stability was not sufficient to guarantee macroeconomic stability and that financial imbalances developed despite low inflation and small output gaps have highlighted the need for additional tools (macro prudential policies) to complement monetary policy in countercyclical management. Emerging markets face different conditions and have key structural features that can have a bearing on the relevance and efficacy of the measures. The chapters in this volume discuss the challenges of dealing with macro financial linkages and explore the policy toolkit available for dealing with systemic risks with particular reference to emerging markets. This report is organized as follows: chapter one is adapting macro prudential approaches to emerging and developing economies; chapter two is adapting micro prudential regulation for emerging markets; chapter three presents capital flow volatility and systemic risk in emerging markets: the policy toolkit; chapter four presents monetary policy and macro prudential regulation: whither emerging markets; chapter five deals with macro prudential policies to mitigate financial vulnerabilities in emerging markets; chapter six presents sailing through the global financial storm; and chapter seven presents operation of macro prudential policy measures.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-11)After several years of negative shocks, global growth is expected to hold steady in 2024 and then edge up in the next couple of years, in part aided by cautious monetary policy easing as inflation gradually declines. However, economic prospects are envisaged to remain tepid, especially in the most vulnerable countries. Risks to the outlook, while more balanced, are still tilted to the downside, including the possibility of escalating geopolitical tensions, further trade fragmentation, and higher-for-longer interest rates. Natural disasters related to climate change could also hinder activity. Subdued growth prospects across many emerging market and developing economies and continued risks underscore the need for decisive policy action at the global and national levels. Global Economic Prospects is a World Bank Group Flagship Report that examines global economic developments and prospects, with a special focus on emerging market and developing economies, on a semiannual basis (in January and June). Each edition includes analytical pieces on topical policy challenges faced by these economies.Publication The Mexican Social Protection System in Health(World Bank, Washington DC, 2013-01)With a population of 113 million and a per-capita Gross Domestic Product, or GDP of US$10,064 (current U.S. dollars), Mexico is one of the largest and highest-income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The country has benefited from sustained economic growth during the last decade, which was temporarily interrupted by the financial and economic crisis. Real GDP is projected to grow 3.8 percent and 3.6 percent in 2012 and 2013, respectively (International Monetary Fund, or IMF 2012). Despite this growth, poverty in the country remains high; with half of the population living below the national poverty line. The country is also highly heterogeneous, with large socioeconomic differences across states and across urban and rural areas. In 2010, while the extreme poverty ratio in the Federal District and the states of Colima and Nuevo Leon was below 3 percent, in Chiapas, Guerrero, and Oaxaca it was 25 percent or higher. These large regional differences are also found in other indicators of well-being, such as years of schooling, housing conditions, and access to social services. This case study assesses key features and achievements of the Social Protection System in Health (Sistema de Proteccion Social en Salud) in Mexico, and particularly of its main pillar, Popular Health Insurance (Seguro Popular, PHI). It analyzes the contribution of this policy to the establishment and implementation of universal health coverage in Mexico. In 2003, with the reform of the General Health Law, the PHI was institutionalized as a subsidized health insurance scheme open to the population not covered by the social security schemes. Today, the PHI covers all of its intended affiliates, about 52 million peoplePublication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Guide to the Debt Management Performance Assessment Tool(Washington, DC, 2008-02-05)The purpose of this document is to provide guidance and supplemental information to assist with country assessments of debt management performance, using the Debt Management Performance Assessment (DeMPA) tool. The DeMPA is a methodology used for assessing public debt management performance through a comprehensive set of 15 performance indicators spanning the full range of government Debt Management (DeM) functions. It is based on the principles set out in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank guidelines for public debt management, initially published in 2001 and updated in 2003. It is modeled after the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) framework for performance measurement of public financial management. The DeMPA has been designed to be a user-friendly tool to undertake an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in government DeM practices. This guide provides additional background and supporting information so that a no specialist in the area of debt management may undertake a country assessment effectively. The guide can be used by assessors in preparing for and undertaking an assessment. It is particularly useful for understanding the rationale for the inclusion of the indicators, the scoring methodology, and the list of supporting documents or evidence required, and the questions that could be asked for the assessment.Publication Crime and Violence in Central America : A Development Challenge - Main Report(World Bank, 2011-01-01)Crime and violence are now a key development issue for Central American countries. In three nations El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras crime rates are among the top five in Latin America. This report argues that successful strategies require actions along multiple fronts, combining prevention and criminal justice reform, together with regional approaches in the areas of drug trafficking and firearms. It also argues that interventions should be evidence based, starting with a clear understanding of the risk factors involved and ending with a careful evaluation of how any planned action might affect future options. In addition, the design of national crime reduction plans and the establishment of national cross-sectoral crime commissions are important steps to coordinate the actions of different government branches, ease cross-sectoral collaboration and prioritize resource allocation. Of equal importance is the fact that national plans offer a vehicle for the involvement of civil society organizations, in which much of the expertise in violence prevention and rehabilitation resides. Prevention efforts need to be complemented by effective law enforcement. The required reforms are no longer primarily legislative in nature because all six countries have advanced toward more transparent adversarial criminal procedures. The second-generation reforms should instead help deliver on the promises of previous reforms by: (i) strengthening key institutions and improving the quality and timeliness of the services they provide to citizens; (ii) improving efficiency and effectiveness while respecting due process and human rights; (iii) ensuring accountability and addressing corruption; (iv) increasing inter-agency collaboration; and (v) improving access to justice, especially for poor and disenfranchised groups. Specific interventions reviewed in the report include: information systems and performance indicators as a prerequisite to improve inter-institutional coordination and information sharing mechanisms; an internal overhaul of court administration and case management to create rapid reaction, one-stop shops; the strengthening of entities that provide legal counseling to the poor and to women; and the promotion of alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms and the implementation of community policing programs.