PERI’s research on capital flight from Africa explores the mechanisms, magnitudes, causes and developmental consequences of capital flight from Africa on African economies.
PERI-OSF Research Project on:
Capital Flight from Africa: Channels, Actors and Enablers
Working Paper Series
With generous support by the Open Society Foundations and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the African Development Policy Program at PERI initiated a research project aimed at filling the sizeable gaps in the existing literature to improve the understanding of the mechanisms, magnitudes and effects of capital flight from Africa. This Working Paper series presents the results from this project.
>> Read more about this series here
PERI-Carnegie Corporation of New York Research Project on:
Capital Flight from Africa and Perverse Global Connections
Working Paper Series
As a 2021 Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Léonce Ndikumana received a generous grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to support a research project project to undertake a quantitative assessment of capital flight, its mechanisms and impacts in three selected African countries – Cameroon, Ghana, and Zambia. The research engages a historical and an institutional analysis of aspects of the global trade and financial systems that facilitate capital flight from these three countries.
>> Read more about this series here
Data and Methodology
>> Download "Capital Flight from African Countries, 1970 - 2018" (May 2021 revision)
Books, Working Papers and Book Chapters
Ndikumana, L. and J. Boyce. "Capital Flight from Africa, 1970-2018, New Estimates with Updated Trade Misinvoicing Methodology." PERI Research Report, May 2021
Ndikumana, L. and J. Boyce. "Magnitude and Mechanisms of Capital Flight from Angola, Côte d'Ivoire and South Africa." PERI Working Paper, Dec. 2019
Ndikumana, L. and J. Boyce. "Capital Flight from Africa: Updated Methodology and Estimates." PERI Research Report, June 2018
Ndikumana, L. and Sarr, M. "Capital Flight and Foreign Direct Investment in Africa." PERI Working Paper, May 2016.
Ajayi, S.I. and L. Ndikumana (2015). Capital Flight from Africa: Causes, Effects, and Policy Issues. New York: Oxford University Press USA.
Boyce, J.K. and L. Ndikumana. "Strategies for Addressing Capital Flight, Part 1." TripleCrisis Blog, drawn from PERI Working Paper, November 2014.
Ndikumana, L. "Savings, Capital Flight, and African Development." PERI Working Paper, July 2014.
Boyce, J.K. and L. Ndikumana (2013). La dette odieuse de l’Afrique. Dakar: Amalion Publishing.
Boyce, J.K. and L. Ndikumana. "Capital Flight from Sub-Saharan African Countries: Updated Estimates, 1970 - 2010." PERI Research Report, October 2012.
Ndikumana, L. and J.K. Boyce. "Capital Flight from North African Countries." PERI Research Report, October 2012.
Ndikumana, L. and J.K. Boyce (2011). Africa's Odious Debt: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent. London: Zed Books.
Ndikumana, L. and J.K. Boyce (2011). “Capital Flight from Sub-Saharan Africa: Linkages with External Borrowing and Policy Options”, International Review of Applied Economics 25(2) 149-170.
Ndikumana, L. and J.K. Boyce (2010). “Measurement of Capital Flight: Methodology and Results for Sub-Saharan African Countries.” African Development Review 22 (4), 471-481.
Boyce, J.K. and L. Ndikumana (2010).“Africa’s Revolving Door: External Borrowing and Capital Flight in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in Vishnu Padayachee (ed.), Political Economy of Africa.
Fofack, H. and L. Ndikumana (2010). “Capital Flight Repatriation: Investigation of its Potential Gains for Sub-Saharan African Countries.” African Development Review 22 (1), 4-22.
Ndikumana, L. (2009). “Capital Flight” in Kenneth Reinert and Ramkishen Rajan (eds.) The Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy.
Boyce, J.K. and L. Ndikumana (2005). “Africa's debt: Who owes whom?” in Gerald Epstein (ed.). Capital Flight and Capital Controls in Developing Countries. Edward Elgar Press, pp. 334-340.
Ndikumana, L. and J.K. Boyce (2003).“Public debts and public assets: Explaining capital flight from sub-Saharan African countries.” World Development, 31(1), 107-130.
Ndikumana, L. and J.K. Boyce (2001). “Is Africa a net creditor? New estimates of capital flight from severely indebted sub-Saharan African countries, 1970-1996,” Journal of Development Studies, 38(2), 27-56.
Ndikumana, L. and J.K. Boyce (1998). “Congo’s odious debt: External borrowing and capital flight in Zaire,” co-authored with James K. Boyce, Development and Change 29 (2), 195-217.
Commentary
August 2012 -- Léonce Ndikumana writes for TripleCrisis about Tunisia's tough stand on the odious debt incurred by the current government's predecessors.
>> Read "Tunisia Leading the Fight Against 'Odious Debts'
February 2012 -- James Boyce and Léonce Ndikumana write for Yale Global on how international banking laws contributed to the looting of Africa.
>> Read "Elites Loot Africa While Foreign Debt Mounts"
February 2012 --Léonce Ndikukmana asks on the TripleCrisis blog, "Why are the presidents of some Africa countries so rich while their people are so poor?
>> Read "Rich Presidents of Poor Nations: An Africa Story of Oil and Capital Flight"
February 2012 -- Léonce Ndikumana contributes a column to the Canadian Council on International Cooperation on the human cost of capital flight from Africa.
>> Read "Richesses spoliées, vies compromises: le coût humain de la fuite des capitaux en Afrique"
October 2011 -- Read James Boyce's TripleCrisis blog on the human cost of capital flight from Africa.
April 2011 -- In James K. Boyce's column for TripleCrisis he looks at the fallout from corporate tax dodging on more than tax revenues .
>> Download "Tax Havens or Financial Sinkholes?"
Media & Other Publications
April 2013 -- Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce are interviewed on Sud FM Radio, Dakar, Senegal
>> Listen to the interview (in French)
November 2012 -- In this investigation for Al Jazeera's People & Power, two journalists pose as a corrupt Zimbabwean official and his lawyer, and probe the world of 'corporate service providers' - experts in the formation of company structures that circumvent lax international money laundering rules.
March 2012 -- Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce's book, Africa's Odious Debt is reviewed in Foreign Affairs magazine
March 2012 -- In an interview with Le Devoir, Léonce Ndikumana seeks to dispel myths about Africa's place in the global economy
>> Read "La Dette odieuse de l'Afrique"
March 2012 -- In this three-part interview on African Diaspora Today, Léonce Ndikumana speaks with Alie Kabba, President of the United African Organization, about the true nature of Africa's debt.
March 2012 -- In this extended review and interview, Reuters Africa explores the details of Léonce Ndikumana and James Boyce's book, Africa's Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent.
>> Read "Should Africa Challenge its ''Odious Debts"?
March 2012 -- Léonce Ndikumana argues, in an interview with Canada's Embassy magazine, that Canada's banks should be required to be more transparent about their loans to Africa.
>> Read "Force Canadian Banks to Disclose Operations Related to Africa"
