It takes two to tango: international financial regulation and offshore centres

Abstract

Focuses on the features of some countries that make them more likely to offer money laundering services, arguing that these tax havens are structurally different from other countries: they lack significant resources for trading internationally, which pushes them to generate income through a lax supervisory regime, yet their smallness makes them less attractive to criminal organisations. Takes a relational approach which focuses on the exchange between the centre and its criminal customers, developing a supply and demand schedule for money laundering regulation and a game structure (with mathematics) for the relationship between Offshore and Criminal. Argues that because of the complex and perverse competitive factors involved, a pure “name and shame” approach by anti‐money laundering policy makers may be counterproductive.

Citation

Masciandaro, D. and Portolano, A. (2003), "It takes two to tango: international financial regulation and offshore centres", Journal of Money Laundering Control, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 311-330. https://doi.org/10.1108/13685200310809635