Capital flight

Capital flight, in economics, is the rapid flow of assets or money out of a country, due to an event of economic consequence or as the result of a political event such as regime change. Such events could be erratic or untrustworthy behavior by leadership, an increase in taxes on capital or capital holders or the government of the country defaulting on its debt that disturbs investors and causes them to lower their valuation of the assets in that country, or otherwise to lose confidence in its economic strength.

This leads to a disappearance of wealth, and is usually accompanied by a sharp drop in the exchange rate of the affected country—depreciation in a variable exchange rate regime, or a forced devaluation in a fixed exchange rate regime. This fall is particularly damaging when the capital belongs to the people of the affected country because not only are the citizens now burdened by the loss in the economy and devaluation of their currency but their assets have lost much of their nominal value. This leads to dramatic decreases in the purchasing power of the country's assets and makes it increasingly expensive to import goods and acquire any form of foreign facilities, e.g. medical facilities.

Countries with resource-based economies experience the largest capital flight. A classical view on capital flight is that it is currency speculation that drives significant cross-border movements of private funds, enough to affect financial markets. The presence of capital flight indicates the need for policy reform.

In the book La dette odieuse de l'Afrique (Africa's Odious Debts), Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce argue that more than 65% of Africa's borrowed debts do not even get into countries in Africa, but remain in private bank accounts in tax havens all over the world. Ndikumana and Boyce estimate that from 1970 to 2008, capital flight from 33 sub-Saharan countries totalled $700 billion. A 2008 paper published by Global Financial Integrity estimated capital flight, also called illicit financial flows to be "out of developing countries are some $850 billion to $1 trillion a year."

Capital flight also takes place in order to evade taxes. In such cases, the flow tends to go in the direction of tax havens.

Capital flight may be legal or illegal under domestic law. Legal capital flight is recorded on the books of the entity or individual making the transfer, and earnings from interest, dividends, and realized capital gains normally return to the country of origin. Illegal capital flight, also known as illicit financial flows, is intended to disappear from any record in the country of origin and earnings on the stock of illegal capital flight outside of a country generally do not return to the country of origin. It is indicated as missing money from a nation's balance of payments.

In 1995, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that capital flight amounted to roughly half of the outstanding foreign debt of the most heavily indebted countries of the world.^{[citation needed]}

Capital flight was seen in some Asian and Latin American markets in the 1990s. Perhaps the most consequential of these was the 1997 Asian financial crisis that started in Thailand and spread through much of East Asia beginning in July 1997, raising fears of a worldwide economic meltdown due to financial contagion.^{[citation needed]}