IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uma/periwp/wp5.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Africa a Net Creditor? New Estimates of Capital Flight from Severely Indebted Sub-Saharan African Countries, 1970-1996

Author

Listed:
  • Léonce Ndikumana
  • James Boyce

Abstract

This paper presents estimates of capital flight from 25 low-income sub-Saharan African countries in the period 1970 to 1996. Capital flight totaled more than $193 billion (in 1996 dollars); with imputed interest earnings, the accumulated stock of flight capital amounts to $285 billion. The combined external debt of these countries stood at $178 billion in 1996. Taking capital flight as a measure of private external assets, and calculating net external assets as private external assets minus public external debts, sub-Saharan Africa thus appears to be a net creditor vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

Suggested Citation

  • Léonce Ndikumana & James Boyce, 2000. "Is Africa a Net Creditor? New Estimates of Capital Flight from Severely Indebted Sub-Saharan African Countries, 1970-1996," Working Papers wp5, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    • Handle: RePEc:uma:periwp:wp5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://per.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/working_papers_1-50/WP5.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mr. Simeon Inidayo Ajayi, 1997. "An Analysis of External Debt and Capital Flight in the Severely Indebted Low Income Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa," IMF Working Papers 1997/068, International Monetary Fund.
    2. World Bank, 1985. "World Development Report 1985," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5968, August.
    3. repec:aer:wpaper:35 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Ajayi, S.I., 1995. "Capital Flight and External Debt in Nigeria," Papers 35, African Economic Research Consortium.
    5. Erbe, Susanne, 1985. "The flight of capital from developing countries," Intereconomics – Review of European Economic Policy (1966 - 1988), ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 20(6), pages 268-275.
    6. Claessens, Stijn & Naude, David, 1993. "Recent estimates of capital flight," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1186, The World Bank.
    7. Lensink, Robert & Hermes, Niels & Murinde, Victor, 1998. "The Effect of Financial Liberalization on Capital Flight in African Economies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 1349-1368, July.
    8. Ndikumana, Leonce, 2000. "Financial Determinants of Domestic Investment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Panel Data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 381-400, February.
    9. Boyce, James K., 1992. "The revolving door? External debt and capital flight: A Philippine case study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 335-349, March.
    10. Leonce Ndikumana & James Boyce, 1998. "Congo's Odious Debt: External Borrowing and Capital Flight in Zaire," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 29(2), pages 195-217, April.
    11. B.W. Smit & B.A. Mocke, 1991. "Capital Flight from South Africa: Magnitude and Causes," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 59(2), pages 60-77, June.
    12. Pastor, Manuel Jr., 1990. "Capital flight from Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-18, January.
    13. Ajayi, S. Ibi, 1992. "An economic analysis of capital flight from Nigeria," Policy Research Working Paper Series 993, The World Bank.
    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. Monoj Kumar Majumder & Mala Raghavan & Joaquin Vespignani, 2020. "Commodity Price Volatility, External Debt and Exchange Rate Regimes," CAMA Working Papers 2020-110, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    2. Monoj Kumar Majumder & Mala Valliammai Raghavan & Joaquin L. Vespignani, 2021. "Impact of commodity price volatility on external debt: the role of exchange rate regimes," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(57), pages 6626-6640, December.
    3. Beja, Edsel, 2009. "Things are different when you open up: Economic openness, domestic economy, and income," MPRA Paper 12802, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Ahmed Abdullahi D., 2011. "International Financial Integration, Investment and Economic Performance in Sub-Saharan African Countries," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 11(4), pages 1-28, December.
    5. Abdullah Hussein Almounsor, 2017. "New Analysis of Capital Flight from Saudi Arabia: The Relation with Long-Term Economic Performance," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 4(6), pages 17-26, November.
    6. Ila Patnaik & Abhijit Sen Gupta & Ajay Shah, 2012. "Determinants of Trade Misinvoicing," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 891-910, November.
    7. Almounsor Abdullah, 2008. "Capital Flight Accounting and Welfare Implications in the MENA Region," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 4(2), pages 1-67, April.
    8. Jomo Kwame Sundaram & Rudiger von Arnim, 2008. "Economic liberalization and constraints to development in sub-Saharan africa," Working Papers 67, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    9. Niels Hermes & Robert Lensink & Victor Murinde, 2002. "Flight Capital and its Reversal for Development Financing," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2002-99, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Léonce Ndikumana, 2001. "Financial Markets and Economic Development in Africa," Working Papers wp17, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    11. Jarita DUASA, 2010. "The Effectiveness of Malaysian Capital Outflow Controls of 1998," EcoMod2004 330600044, EcoMod.

    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. Hajer Dachraoui & Mounir Smida & Maamar Sebri, 2020. "Role of capital flight as a driver of sovereign bond spreads in Latin American countries," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 162, pages 15-33.
    2. Niels Hermes & Robert Lensink & Victor Murinde, 2002. "Flight Capital and its Reversal for Development Financing," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2002-99, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Ndikumana, Leonce & Boyce, James K., 2003. "Public Debts and Private Assets: Explaining Capital Flight from Sub-Saharan African Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 107-130, January.
    4. Heydari, Hassan & Jariani, Farzaneh, 2020. "Analyzing Effective Factors of Capital Outflow from the Middle East and North African Countries (MENA)," MPRA Paper 104547, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Hajer Dachraoui & Maamar Sebri & Mahmoud M. A. Dwedar, 2021. "Natural Resources and Illicit Financial Flows from BRICS Countries," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 1-13, March.
    6. James Boyce & Léonce Ndikumana, 2008. "New Estimates of Capital Flight from Sub-Saharan African Countries: Linkages with External Borrowing and Policy Options," Working Papers wp166, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    7. repec:aer:wpaper:343 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Siranova, Maria & Tiruneh, Menbere Workie & Fisera, Boris, 2021. "Creating the illicit capital flows network in Europe – Do the net errors and omissions follow an economic pattern?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 955-973.
    9. Dyendelayi, Isaac, 2000. "Analyse de Fuite des Capitaux en Afrique Subsaharienne : Cas de la République Démocratique du Congo (2000 – 2018) [Analysis of Capital Flight in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case of Democratic Republic of C," MPRA Paper 110335, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 31 Dec 2018.
    10. Vincent A. Onodugo & Ijeoma E. Kalu & Oluchukwu F. Anowor & Nnaemeka O. Ukweni, 2014. "Is Capital Flight Healthy For Nigerian Economic Growth? An Econometric Investigation," Journal of Empirical Economics, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 3(1), pages 10-24.
    11. Sebri, Maamar & Dachraoui, Hajer, 2020. "Resources bless BRICS," MPRA Paper 100423, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Beja Jr, Edsel, 2010. "Balance of Payments-consistent unreported flows," MPRA Paper 21699, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Andrew Powell & Dilip Ratha & Sanket Mohapatra, 2002. "Capital Inflows and Capital Outflows: Measurement, Determinants, Consequences," Business School Working Papers veinticinco, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
    14. Brada, Josef C. & Kutan, Ali M. & Vukšić, Goran, 2013. "Capital Flight in the Presence of Domestic Borrowing: Evidence from Eastern European Economies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 32-46.
    15. Ashis Kumar Pradhan & Gourishankar S. Hiremath, 2017. "The Capital Flight From India: A Case Of Missing Woods For Trees?," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 65(02), pages 365-383, January.
    16. Usman, Francis Robert & Arene, Chukwuemeka John, 2014. "Effects of Capital Flight and Its Macroeconomic Determinants in Agricultural Growth in Nigeria (1970-2013)," International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC), Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Department of Economics and Finance, vol. 2(4), pages 1-20, October.
    17. Jean-Louis Combes & Alexandru Minea & Pegdéwendé Nestor Sawadogo, 2019. "Assessing the effects of combating illicit financial flows on domestic tax revenue mobilization in developing countries," CERDI Working papers halshs-02019073, HAL.
    18. Simplice A. Asongu, 2014. "Fighting African Capital Flight: Empirics on Benchmarking Policy Harmonization," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 11(1), pages 93-122, June.
    19. Yin‐Wong Cheung & XingWang Qian, 2010. "Capital Flight: China's Experience," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 227-247, May.
    20. Sadik, Ali T. & Bolbol, Ali A., 2003. "Arab External Investments: Relation to National Wealth, Estimation, and Consequences," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(11), pages 1771-1792, November.
    21. repec:dgr:rugsom:14031-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Fofack, Hippolyte, 2009. "Causality between external debt and capital flight in Sub-Saharan Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5042, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    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:uma:periwp:wp5. 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: Judy Fogg The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Judy Fogg to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/permaus.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.