Convened by Cassandra Vet and Danny Cassimon, Institute of Development Policy, University of Antwerp

Illicit financial flows limit the resources available for development (Cobham & Jansky, 2018; O'Hare et al., 2014). Globally, financial standard-setting bodies designed rules (e.g., transfer pricing rules, country-by-country reporting, anti-money laundering standards) to assist countries in their efforts to protect their tax base and govern illicit behavior in the form of tax avoidance, evasion, and money laundering. Yet, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. While the flaws of each of these standards—and their reliance on expert-based rules—have attracted academic attention (Buttner & Thiemann, 2017; Tsingou, 2010; Ylonen & Teivainen, 2018), less focus has been placed on their domestic implementation (Hearson, 2018). However, global standards do not exist in isolation and rely on national legislators and bureaucrats for implementation and actual revenue impacts. Domestic political economy influences the effectiveness of these global standards, and although most of these rules are globally under review, a renewed global tax framework is unlikely to escape localized contexts. This panel is therefore interested in studies on how global rules gain authority domestically that aim to:

1. Bring in bottom-up perspectives on the implementation of global standards to curb illicit financial flows.

2. Explore the effectiveness of global standards to curb illicit financial flows.

3. Explain why the adoption of global standards to curb illicit financial flows is not translated in administrative practice.

4. Identify good practices for global norms to curb illicit financial flows to be implementable in low-income countries. 

Buttner, T., & Thiemann, M. (2017). Breaking Regime Stability? The Politicization of Expertise in the OECD/G20 Process on BEPS and the Potential Transformation of International Taxation. Accounting Economics and Law-a Convivium, 7(1). doi.orghttps://doi.org/10.1515/ael-2016-0069

Cobham, A., & Jansky, P. (2018). Global distribution of revenue loss from corporate tax avoidance: re-estimation and country results. Journal of International Development, 30(2), 206-232. doi.org/10.1002/jid.3348 

Hearson, M. (2018). The Challenges for Developing Countries in International Tax Justice. Journal of Development Studies, 54(10), 1932-1938. doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2017.1309040 

O'Hare, B., Makuta, I., Bar-Zeev, N., Chiwaula, L., & Cobham, A. (2014). The effect of illicit financial flows on time to reach the fourth Millennium Development Goal in Sub-Saharan Africa: a quantitative analysis. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 107(4), 148-156. doi.org/10.1177/0141076813514575 

Tsingou, E. (2010). Global financial governance and the developing anti-money laundering regime: What lessons for International Political Economy? International Politics, 47(6), 617-637. doi.org/10.1057/ip.2010.32 

Ylonen, M., & Teivainen, T. (2018). Politics of Intra-firm Trade: Corporate Price Planning and the Double Role of the Arm's Length Principle. New Political Economy, 23(4), 441-457. 

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