IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/irlaec/v30y2010i3p244-252.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dancing with the devil: Country size and the incentive to tolerate money laundering

Author

Listed:
  • Gnutzmann, Hinnerk
  • McCarthy, Killian J.
  • Unger, Brigitte

Abstract

The incidence of money laundering, and the zeal with which international anti-money laundering (AML) policy is pursued, varies significantly from country to country, region to region. There are, however, quite substantial social costs associated with a policy of toleration, and this begs the question as to why such a variance should exist. In this paper we claim that, due to the globalisation of crime, if a single country should break the "chain of accountability", then it will provide a safe haven for criminals and attract the total financial proceeds of crime. Because smaller economies are best able to insulate themselves from the costs of crime, we argue that smaller countries bear only a tiny share of the total costs relative to the potential benefits of investment that money laundering offers, and so have a higher incentive to tolerate the practice compared to their larger neighbours. As such, we claim that the existence of a money laundering market is due to a policy of AML 'defection', and that the degree of 'defection' depends largely on the size of the country. We present a simple model of policy competition which formalises this intuition, and conclude by exploring a number of policy recommendations which flow from this.

Suggested Citation

  • Gnutzmann, Hinnerk & McCarthy, Killian J. & Unger, Brigitte, 2010. "Dancing with the devil: Country size and the incentive to tolerate money laundering," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 244-252, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:30:y:2010:i:3:p:244-252
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144-8188(10)00013-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amedeo Argentiero & Michele Bagella & Francesco Busato, 2008. "Money laundering in a two-sector model: using theory for measurement," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 341-359, December.
    2. Anderson, David A, 1999. "The Aggregate Burden of Crime," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 611-642, October.
    3. Brigitte Unger, 2007. "The Scale and Impacts of Money Laundering," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12690.
    4. Hans‐Werner Sinn, 2004. "The New Systems Competition," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 5(1), pages 23-38, February.
    5. Friedrich Schneider, 2008. "Money laundering and financial means of organised crime: some preliminary empirical findings," Global Business and Economics Review, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(3), pages 309-330.
    6. Baumol, William J., 1996. "Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 3-22, January.
    7. Edwin M. Truman & Peter Reuter, 2004. "Chasing Dirty Money: The Fight Against Anti-Money Laundering," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 381, October.
    8. Előd Takáts, 2011. "A Theory of "Crying Wolf" : The Economics of Money Laundering Enforcement," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(1), pages 32-78.
    9. Brigitte Unger & Gregory Rawlings, 2008. "Competing for criminal money," Global Business and Economics Review, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(3), pages 331-352.
    10. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
    11. Acemoglu, Daron, 1995. "Reward structures and the allocation of talent," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 17-33, January.
    12. Donato Masciandaro, 2005. "False and Reluctant Friends? National Money Laundering Regulation, International Compliance and Non-Cooperative Countries," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 17-30, July.
    13. Ivaldi, Marc & Jullien, Bruno & Rey, Patrick & Seabright, Paul & Tirole, Jean, 2003. "The Economics of Tacit Collusion," IDEI Working Papers 186, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    14. Ehrlich, Isaac, 1973. "Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 521-565, May-June.
    15. B. Unger & J. Ferwerda, 2008. "Regulating Money Laundering and Tax Havens: The Role of Blacklisting," Working Papers 08-12, Utrecht School of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roberto Dell’Anno & Majid Maddah, 2023. "Money laundering, corruption and socioeconomic development in Iran: an analysis by structural equation modeling," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 70(3), pages 395-417, September.
    2. Schwarz, Peter, 2011. "Money launderers and tax havens: Two sides of the same coin?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 37-47, March.
    3. Joras Ferwerda & Ioana Sorina Deleanu & Brigitte Unger, 2019. "Strategies to avoid blacklisting: The case of statistics on money laundering," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-13, June.
    4. Emma Galli & Ilde Rizzo & Carla Scaglioni, 2020. "Is transparency spatially determined? An empirical test for Italian municipalities," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(58), pages 6372-6385, December.
    5. Olga Balakina & Angelo D’Andrea & Donato Masciandaro, 2017. "Bank secrecy in offshore centres and capital flows: Does blacklisting matter?," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(1), pages 30-57, January.
    6. Carmela D’Avino, 2023. "Money laundering and AML regulatory and judicial system regimes: investigation of FinCEN files," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 195-223, April.
    7. Brigitte Unger, 2013. "Introduction," Chapters, in: Brigitte Unger & Daan van der Linde (ed.), Research Handbook on Money Laundering, chapter 1, pages 3-16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. repec:idb:brikps:81941 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Viktoriya Gonchar & Oleksandr Kalinin & Olena Khadzhynova & Killian J. McCarthy, 2022. "False Friends? On the Effect of Bureaucracy, Informality, Corruption and Conflict in Ukraine on Foreign and Domestic Acquisitions," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-14, April.
    10. Gullo, Valentina & Montalbano, Pierluigi, 2022. "Financial transparency and anomalous portfolio investment flows: A gravity analysis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    11. McCarthy, Killian J. & van Santen, Peter & Fiedler, Ingo, 2015. "Modeling the money launderer: Microtheoretical arguments on anti-money laundering policy," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 148-155.
    12. Valentina Gullo & Pierluigi Montalbano, 2018. "Where does “dirty” money go? A gravity analysis," Working Papers 5/18, Sapienza University of Rome, DISS.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. McCarthy, Killian J. & van Santen, Peter & Fiedler, Ingo, 2015. "Modeling the money launderer: Microtheoretical arguments on anti-money laundering policy," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 148-155.
    2. Raffaella Barone & Domenico Delle Side & Donato Masciandaro, 2018. "Drug trafficking, money laundering and the business cycle: Does secular stagnation include crime?," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(2), pages 409-426, May.
    3. Carmela D’Avino, 2023. "Money laundering and AML regulatory and judicial system regimes: investigation of FinCEN files," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 195-223, April.
    4. B. Unger & F. van Waarden, 2009. "Attempts to Dodge Drowning in Data: Rule- and Risk-Based Anti Money Laundering Policies Compared," Working Papers 09-19, Utrecht School of Economics.
    5. Tomas Williams & Pablo Slutzky & Mauricio Villamizar-Villegas, 2019. "Drug Money and Bank Lending: The Unintended Consequences of Anti-Money Laundering Policies," Working Papers 2019-5, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy, revised May 2020.
    6. Raffaella Barone & Donato Masciandaro, 2011. "Organized crime, money laundering and legal economy: theory and simulations," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 115-142, August.
    7. Raffaella Barone & Donato Masciandaro & Friedrich Schneider, 2022. "Corruption and money laundering: You scratch my back, i’ll scratch yours," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 318-342, February.
    8. Godspower-Akpomiemie, Euphemia & Ojah, Kalu, 2018. "Money laundering, Tax havens, Transparency and Board of Directors of Banks," MPRA Paper 89550, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Utz Weitzel & Diemo Urbig & Sameeksha Desai & Mark Sanders & Zoltán J. Ács, 2015. "The good, the bad, and the talented: Entrepreneurial talent and selfish behavior," Chapters, in: Global Entrepreneurship, Institutions and Incentives, chapter 2, pages 24-41, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Sanders, Mark & Weitzel, Utz, 2010. "The Allocation of Entrepreneurial Talent and Destructive Entrepreneurship," WIDER Working Paper Series 046, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Mark Sanders & Utz Weitzel, 2010. "The Allocation of Entrepreneurial Talent and Destructive Entrepreneurship," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2010-046, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Jan U. Auerbach, 2019. "Property rights enforcement with unverifiable incomes," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(3), pages 701-735, October.
    13. Barelli, Paulo & Pessôa, Samuel de Abreu, 2002. "A model of capital accumulation and rent-seeking," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 449, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    14. Friedrich Schneider, 2011. "The Financial Flows of the Transnational Crime: Some Preliminary Empirical Results," Economics of Security Working Paper Series 53, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Donato Masciandaro, 2008. "Offshore financial centres: the political economy of regulation," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 307-340, December.
    16. Paulo Barelli & Samuel De Abreu Pessôa, 2012. "Rent‐Seeking And Capital Accumulation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(2), pages 399-417, April.
    17. Marceau, Nicolas & Mongrain, Steeve, 2011. "Competition in law enforcement and capital allocation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 136-147, January.
    18. van Ours, Jan C. & Williams, Jenny & Ward, Shannon, 2015. "Bad Behavior: Delinquency, Arrest and Early School Leaving," CEPR Discussion Papers 10755, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Entorf, H. & Winker, P., 2008. "Investigating the drugs-crime channel in economics of crime models: Empirical evidence from panel data of the German States," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 8-22, March.
    20. Elert, Niklas & Henrekson, Magnus, 2017. "Entrepreneurship and Institutions: A Bidirectional Relationship," Working Paper Series 1153, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, revised 05 May 2017.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:30:y:2010:i:3:p:244-252. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/irle .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.