History and overview of ‘IFF’

This chapter provides a history of the rise of the term ‘illicit financial flows’ (IFF), and the emergence since 2000 of a global tax justice movement. As a broad umbrella term, the phrase was useful in ensuring the political consensus behind the establishment of a target to curtail IFF in the UN Su...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEstimating Illicit Financial Flows
Main Authors Cobham, Alex, Janský, Petr
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Oxford University Press 18.02.2020
Subjects
IFFs
SDGs
human development
Illicit financial flows
corruption
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Summary:This chapter provides a history of the rise of the term ‘illicit financial flows’ (IFF), and the emergence since 2000 of a global tax justice movement. As a broad umbrella term, the phrase was useful in ensuring the political consensus behind the establishment of a target to curtail IFF in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. But that consensus has hidden, to some extent, disagreements over the relative priorities—from the old view of corruption as a problem predominantly of lower-income countries, to the more recent recognition of the central role of typically high-income financial secrecy jurisdictions. Disagreements over political priority have played out as disputes over the definition of IFF, and over the quality of estimates of scale. This chapter provides a comprehensive typology of IFF, and summarises the evidence on the importance of the phenomenon for human development.
ISBN:9780198854418
0198854412
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198854418.003.0002