IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/opques/qef_805_23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The gravity of Offshore Financial Centers: estimating real FDIs using a binary choice model

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Albori

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Alessio Anzuini

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Fabrizio Ferriani
  • Luca Rossi

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs) exert a profound distortion on economic analyses based on cross-border capital flows reported in official statistics, as a large share of those investments is known to be solely due to tax and regulatory avoidance purposes. Notwithstanding the importance of this phenomenon, scant information is available concerning its actual magnitude. This paper focuses on Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and fills this gap by using an extensive list of FDI determinants and estimating a gravity-like binary choice specification to assess how much bilateral FDIs are driven by economic integration motives versus profit shifting opportunities. We find that the share of so-called phantom FDIs, after rising in 2010-15, stabilized at around 40% of total FDIs in recent years and that this share is systematically larger in OFCs, reconciling available evidence on the abnormal amount of recorded FDIs in OFCs.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Albori & Alessio Anzuini & Fabrizio Ferriani & Luca Rossi, 2023. "The gravity of Offshore Financial Centers: estimating real FDIs using a binary choice model," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 805, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
  • Handle: RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_805_23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/qef/2023-0805/QEF_805_23.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Delatte, Anne-Laure & Guillin, Amelie & Vicard, Vincent, 2022. "Grey zones in global finance: The distorted geography of cross-border investments," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    2. Antonio Coppola & Matteo Maggiori & Brent Neiman & Jesse Schreger, 2021. "Redrawing the Map of Global Capital Flows: The Role of Cross-Border Financing and Tax Havens," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1499-1556.
    3. Nadia Accoto & Valerio Astuti & Costanza Catalano, 2023. "A probabilistic method for reconstructing the foreign direct investments network in search of ultimate host economies," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 760, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Beck, Roland & Coppola, Antonio & Lewis, Angus & Maggiori, Matteo & Schmitz, Martin & Schreger, Jesse, 2023. "The Geography of Capital Allocation in the Euro Area," SocArXiv rzwd2, Center for Open Science.
    5. James R. Hines & Eric M. Rice, 1994. "Fiscal Paradise: Foreign Tax Havens and American Business," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 149-182.
    6. Jannick Damgaard & Thomas Elkjaer & Niels Johannesen, 2019. "What Is Real and What Is Not in the Global FDI Network?," IMF Working Papers 2019/274, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Casella, Bruno, 2019. "Looking through conduit FDI in search of ultimate investors – a probabilistic approach," MPRA Paper 95188, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Bruno Casella, . "Looking through conduit FDI in search of ultimate investors – a probabilistic approach," UNCTAD Transnational Corporations Journal, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Damgaard, Jannick & Elkjaer, Thomas & Johannesen, Niels, 2024. "What is real and what is not in the global FDI network?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    2. Bruno Casella & Baptiste Souillard, . "A new framework to assess the fiscal impact of a global minimum tax on FDI," UNCTAD Transnational Corporations Journal, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    3. Bricongne, Jean-Charles & Delpeuch, Samuel & Lopez-Forero, Margarita, 2023. "Productivity slowdown and tax havens: Where is measured value creation?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    4. Broner, Fernando & Didier, Tatiana & Schmukler, Sergio L. & von Peter, Goetz, 2023. "Bilateral international investments: The big sur?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    5. King, Katiuska, 2022. "Foreign direct investment in Latin America from the perspective of illicit financial flows: “cocacolonisation” of saving?," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    6. Delatte, Anne-Laure & Guillin, Amelie & Vicard, Vincent, 2022. "Grey zones in global finance: The distorted geography of cross-border investments," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    7. Luo, Changyuan & Luo, Qin & Zeng, Shuai, 2022. "Bilateral tax agreement and FDI inflows: Evidence from Hong Kong investment in the Mainland China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    8. Petr Janský & Jan Láznička & Miroslav Palanský, 2021. "Tax treaties worldwide: Estimating elasticities and revenue foregone," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 359-401, May.
    9. Beck, Roland & Coppola, Antonio & Lewis, Angus & Maggiori, Matteo & Schmitz, Martin & Schreger, Jesse, 2023. "The Geography of Capital Allocation in the Euro Area," SocArXiv rzwd2, Center for Open Science.
    10. Florez-Orrego, Sergio & Maggiori, Matteo & Schreger, Jesse & Sun, Ziwen & Tinda, Serdil, 2023. "Global Capital Allocation," SocArXiv 5s6n3, Center for Open Science.
    11. Jakob Miethe, 2020. "The Elusive Banker: Using Hurricanes to Uncover (Non-)Activity in Offshore Financial Centers," CESifo Working Paper Series 8625, CESifo.
    12. Yuwan Duan & Erik Dietzenbacher & Bart Los & Ruochen Dai, 2023. "Regional inequality in China during its rise as a giant exporter: A value chain analysis," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 148-172, January.
    13. Lambert, Claudia & Molestina Vivar, Luis & Wedow, Michael, 2024. "Is home bias biased? New evidence from the investment fund sector," Working Paper Series 2924, European Central Bank.
    14. Katarzyna A. Bilicka & André Seidel, 2022. "Measuring Firm Activity from Outer Space," NBER Working Papers 29945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Fonseca, Luís & Nikalexi, Katerina & Papaioannou, Elias, 2023. "The globalization of corporate control," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    16. Garcia-Bernardo, Javier & Janský, Petr, 2024. "Profit shifting of multinational corporations worldwide," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    17. Giuseppe Pulina & Skerdilajda Zanaj, 2022. "Tax competition and phantom FDI," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(6), pages 1342-1363, December.
    18. Katarzyna Bilicka & Evgeniya Dubinina & Petr Janský, 2022. "Fiscal consequences of corporate tax avoidance," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-97, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Kern, Andreas & Nosrati, Elias & Reinsberg, Bernhard & Sevinc, Dilek, 2023. "Crash for cash: Offshore financial destinations and IMF programs," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    20. Antonio Coppola & Matteo Maggiori & Brent Neiman & Jesse Schreger, 2021. "Redrawing the Map of Global Capital Flows: The Role of Cross-Border Financing and Tax Havens," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1499-1556.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign Direct Investments; FDI network; tax havens; gravity models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bdi:opques:qef_805_23. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    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.