Development aid and illicit capital flight: Evidence from Nepal

Sven Steinkamp () and Frank Westermann

No 121, IEER Working Papers from Institute of Empirical Economic Research, Osnabrueck University

Abstract: While illicit capital flight is a major concern of policy makers in developing countries, there is only little research on the possible link between capital flight and development aid. In this paper, we address the issue for Nepal, a stereotypical financially-closed developing economy that is highly dependent on resources from abroad. Distinguishing features of our approach are the use of a narrowly defined proxy of capital flight, based on trade-cost adjusted mirror trade statistics, and the focus on the foreign-exchange cash component of development aid. We document a robust partial correlation between aid and outward capital flight that is economically and statistically significant. Interestingly, this positive correlation is not observable for remittances, an alternative form of foreign-exchange inflows where the capital flight motivation is absent. Furthermore, it is visible in the the FX-cash component but not in broader aid definitions that include in-kind transfers, or in multilateral and IMF loans. Finally, when comparing the subcomponents of export underinvoicing and import overinvoicing, only the latter is driving our results.

Keywords: Capital Flight; Development Aid; Remittances; Trade Misinvoicing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F24 F32 F35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2021-09-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-fdg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Development aid and illicit capital flight: Evidence from Nepal (2022)
Working Paper: Development aid and illicit capital flight: Evidence from Nepal (2021)
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