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1. Capital Flight from South Africa: A Case Study

Author:
Léonce Ndikumana, Karmen Naidoo, and Adam Aboobaker
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
This paper examines the mechanisms, actors, enablers, and the institutional environment that facilitate capital flight from South Africa and the resulting accumulation of private wealth in offshore financial centers. We estimate that from 1970 to 2017, South Africa lost over $300 billion through capital flight, including through overinvoicing of imports and underinvoicing of exports. Net trade misinvoicing amounted to $146 billion over the 1998-2017 period alone. Export underinvoicing appears to be especially rampant in the case of mineral resources such as gold, silver, platinum and diamonds. While capital flight is not a new phenomenon in South Africa, it has accelerated substantially over the past decades, a period marked by aggressive liberalization of the national economy and rapid integration into the global economy. Capital flight is a concern in a country such as South Africa that faces deep financing gaps, high multidimensional poverty, inequality and unemployment. An important challenge faced by South Africa in its quest to tackle capital flight and the associated problems such as tax evasion, base profit shifting, and money laundering is the threat of erosion of the public confidence in state institutions in light of the emerging phenomenon of state capture orchestrated by an intricate network of private ‘enablers’ with deep connections within the state and in the global economy. The adverse effects of capital flight on economic development, state institutions and governance call for urgent attention to prevent even more devastating consequences for the country’s political and social instability.
Topic:
Governance, Global Political Economy, Institutions, Capital Flight, Tax Evasion, Instability, and Money Laundering
Political Geography:
Africa and South Africa

2. Who Wins in the World Economy and English Football?

Author:
Matt Andrews
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Globalization has fed significant economic gains across the world. The gains lead some policymakers in developing countries to believe in the potential of ‘catch up’—where they leverage the gains of an open world economy to foster rapid progress and compete with more developed nations. This belief is particularly evident in countries like Rwanda, where policymakers aspire to turn the country into ‘Africa’s Singapore’. This paper asks if such aspiration is realistic: Do developing countries really gain enough from globalization to catch up to more developed countries? The paper examines the world economy as a league in which countries compete for winnings (manifest in higher income and production). Wealthier countries are in the top tiers of this league and poorer countries are in the lower tiers. The paper asks if gains from the last generation of growth have been distributed in such a way to foster ‘catch up’ by lower tier countries, and if we see these countries ‘catching up’ by moving into higher tiers. This analysis of the world economy is compared with a study of English football, where over 90 clubs play in an multi-tier league system. Prominent examples of ‘catch up’ in this system include Leicester City’s rise from the third tier in 2008 to become first tier champion in 2015. The paper asks if such ‘catch up’ is common in English football, given the way winnings are distributed, and if ‘catch up’ is more common in this context than in the world economy more generally.
Topic:
Globalization, Developing World, Global Political Economy, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:
Africa and Rwanda

3. Emerging Countries in Global Financial Standard Setting: Explaining Relative Resilience and Its Implications

Author:
Andrew Walter
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:
This special report explores the role of emerging-country members in the Basel process, a key aspect of global financial standard setting. It argues that this process has been significantly more politically resilient than adjacent aspects of global economic governance, in part because major emerging countries have perceived continuing “intra-club” benefits from participation within it. Most important among these are learning benefits for key actors within these countries, including incumbent political leaders. Although some emerging countries perceive growing influence over the international financial standard-setting process, many implicitly accept limited influence in return for learning benefits, which are valuable because of the complexity of contemporary financial systems and the sustained policy challenges it creates for advanced and emerging countries alike. The importance of learning benefits also differentiates the Basel process from other international economic organizations in which agenda control and influence over outcomes are more important for emerging-country governments. This helps to explain the relative resilience of the Basel process in the context of continued influence asymmetries and the wider fragmentation of global economic governance. The report also considers some reforms that could further improve the position of emerging countries in the process and bolster its perceived legitimacy among them.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Financial Markets, Global Political Economy, and Emerging States
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, North America, and Global Focus

4. EU Pressure on Niger to Stop Migrants is Reshaping Cross-Border Economies: From migrants to drugs, gold, and rare animals

Author:
Hans Lucht and Luca Raineri
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Though the four-by-fours with migrants still leave regularly for Libya, there’s little doubt that EU driven anti-migration efforts in the Agadez region of Niger has been a blow to the local cross-border economy. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS ■ EU interventions in Niger have had an unintended negative effect on the safety of migrants. It’s therefore important to maintain focus on rescue missions in the desert. ■ Europe must ensure that conflict and context sensitivity remain paramount as well as promoting alternative development opportunities and good governance. ■ National, local and traditional authorities should continue to avoid conflicts linked to natural resources, including gold, uranium, pasturelands and water, by promoting transparency and participatory decision-making.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Migration, Poverty, Border Control, European Union, Inequality, Fragile States, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa, Libya, North Africa, and Niger

5. Lessons Notes on Capacity Development in Africa

Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF)
Abstract:
ACBF with close to three decades of capacity building on the continent, it is high time to reflect on and share in a single document the lessons learnt in these efforts. This volume, therefore, tackles important questions including: what works, what doesn’t work in capacity development interventions and why? What are the implementation bottlenecks facing countries? What critical factors need to be reconsidered and what initiatives should be undertaken to effectively and sustainably support the capacity development efforts on the continent? What results have these capacity building efforts produced for African citizens? Are there adaptable generic capacity building tools that have emerged from over a quarter century of ACBF engagement with African institutions and societies?
Topic:
Development, Global Political Economy, Capacity, and Economic Development
Political Geography:
Africa and Global Focus

6. What Holds African LDC Exports Back? Translating Global Trade Alert Data Into A Positive Trade Agenda For Africa

Author:
Pamela Anne Bayona, Vincent Martin Beyer, and Olayinka Oladeji
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Trade and Economic Integration, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:
Trade-Restrictive Measures (TRM) are an area of huge concern to importers and exporters in African Union Least Developed Countries (AU LDCs) located in Sub-Saharan Africa. This report identifies and analyses discriminatory government policies that adversely affect AU LDCs over the period 2009 to 2017 by using the Global Trade Alert database, a database that collects information on trade-discriminatory measures implemented by countries worldwide. The research by the students shows that the most frequently encountered TRM types are import tariff measures, tax-based export incentives, trade finance measures, public procurement localisation and export taxes. However, the Global Trade Alert excludes Technical Barriers to Trade and Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures that are formally justifiable as serving public interests, but are typically the most commonly cited as the biggest obstacles to trade. The report also provides policy recommendations and negotiation positions to the AU LDC Countries to move from a defensive trade agenda to an offensive one.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Developing World, Global Political Economy, and Free Trade
Political Geography:
Africa and African Union

7. Conditional Pricing of Currency Risk in Africa's Equity Market

Author:
Odongo Kodongo and Kalu Ojah
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
African Economic Research Consortium (AERC)
Abstract:
In this paper, we sought to establish whether Africa’s volatile currencies drive equity risk premium. We use the stochastic discount factor (SDF) framework to estimate various conditional specifications of the International Capital Asset Pricing Model through generalized method of moments technique. Our results show strong evidence of conditional, time-varying currency risk premium in equity returns. Currency risk is also perceived by international investors as important in informing the equities pricing kernel. We also find evidence that international investors are worried about Africa’s small size equity markets and build anticipated low trading into their pricing calculus.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Global Political Economy, Economic Growth, Capital Flows, Currency, and Profit
Political Geography:
Africa

8. A Vision of Africa's Future

Author:
Giovanni Carbone
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
Africa is a fast-changing continent and an area of rising global relevance, where major transformation processes are currently underway, from demographic expansion to economic development, from social progress to environmental challenges, from technological innovation to continental integration, from political change to migratory pressures. How will these complex transformations shape the Africa of tomorrow? This Report sets out a vision for Africa’s future based on five key traits: an archipelago of heterogeneous growth trajectories; the revolutionary impact of technological leapfrogging; regional integration and the growing role of sub-regional processes; the clustering of instability mainly around the core of the region; and the migration movements that originate from – but also predominantly remain within – the African continent.
Topic:
International Affairs and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa

9. The Dynamics of Africa in World Affairs: From Afro-Pessimism to Afro-Optimism?

Author:
Sharkdam Wapmuk and Oluwatooni Akinkwotu
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
The article argues that Africa has never existed apart from world politics, but has been inevitably entangled in the dynamics and flow of events and changing configurations of global power. Historical records have clearly confirmed that there have been contacts, interactions and a flow of both ideas and goods between Africa, Europe, Asia and Americas. Whether the continent’s historical contacts and interactions with the rest of the world have been a ‘curse or blessing’ has been a subject of serious debate (Adekaye 2010). African affairs have contributed in shaping the world and Africa in turn, has been, and is still being shaped by international processes and structures. The study of Africa in world affairs has no doubt attracted scholarly interest. However, most studies on the continent, especially in the past two decades tend to focused on the negative narrative - crisis, war, poverty, natural disasters, corruption, diseases and famine, criminality, environmental degradation, mismanagement of natural resources and crisis of governance (Zartman 1995). Some even completely wrote-off the continent as a ‘hopeless case’, ‘dark continent’, and ‘the world’s burden’ (The Economist 2000). Africans have strongly resisted such narrative that tends to dismiss historical realities of Africa’s rape through slavery, colonialism, economic dependency and continued dominance by the international institutions of global governance (World Bank, IMF and WTO) and external involvement and influence of the great powers on the continent.
Topic:
International Relations, Power Politics, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa and Global Focus

10. The Political Economy of International Migration: Three Important Perspectives

Author:
Mojúbàolú Olufúnké Okome
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Ìrìnkèrindò: a Journal of African Migration
Abstract:
The publication of this issue is foreshadowed by the tragic drowning of hundreds of migrants, including Africans, in the Mediterranean Sea (BBC News 2015, Rosen 2015, Walsh, Almasy and Botelho 2015, Traynor 2015, Fottrell 2015). The sheer size of these drownings have once again caused popular horror and contemplation on causes and consequences of migration. The projection by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) that these deaths could increase to over 30,000 just in 2015 is anxiety provoking and shocking (AlJazeera News 2015, Brian and Laczko 2014). The drownings have also caused increased focus on the policies of popular destination countries and regions and critiques of the harshness of these regimes as well as calls for more humane migration policies, research and documentation of the root causes of migration, and heartrending accounts of migrants’ motives and harrowing experiences (Clegg 2015, Barker 2014, Kassam 2014). As well, they have caused intensified media attention to the circumstances that propel migration from various African countries and the choice of destinations in Europe. These conditions and circumstances are hardly new. Neither are the tales of woe that attend the serious decision to abandon familiar misery of migrants’ homelands in hopes of somehow experiencing the miracle of success in unknown climes (Sy 2006, Ndege 2006, Morris 2005, Bailey 2005, Travis August, Kingsley 2015).
Topic:
Migration, Political Economy, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa and Europe

11. Capital Flight: Measurement and Drivers

Author:
Léonce Ndikumana, James K. Boyce, and Ameth Saloum Ndiaye
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
African Economic Research Consortium (AERC)
Abstract:
This paper describes the nature of capital flight, the methodologies used to measure it, and its drivers. The paper presents updated estimates of the magnitude of capital flight from 39 African countries for which adequate data are available for the period 1970-2010. It gives a global context of the problem of capital flight from Africa by providing comparative indicators on capital flight and related flows for other developing regions. The paper undertakes a detailed econometric analysis of the drivers of capital flight from African countries. It explores empirically the role of domestic and external factors in driving capital flight, including structural factors, the macroeconomic environment, governance, risk and returns to investment, capital account openness, and financial development. The first objective of the study is to contribute to the literature by providing the most comprehensive analysis of capital flight from Africa that takes into account economic as well as non-economic dimensions, and recognizes the importance of both the domestic and global contexts. The second objective is to contribute to the policy debate on capital flight both in Africa and globally.
Topic:
Economics, International Political Economy, International Affairs, Global Markets, Global Political Economy, and Capital Flight
Political Geography:
Africa and Global Focus