The End of Bank Secrecy? An Evaluation of the G20 Tax Haven Crackdown
研究了G20国家迫使避税天堂签署双边银行信息交换条约后,这些条约如何影响避税天堂的银行存款,发现资金并未回流,而是转移到未签约的避税天堂。
During the financial crisis, G20 countries compelled tax havens to sign bilateral treaties providing for exchange of bank information. Policymakers have celebrated this global initiative as the end of bank secrecy. Exploiting a unique panel dataset, our study is the first attempt to assess how the treaties affected bank deposits in tax havens. Rather than repatriating funds, our results suggest that tax evaders shifted deposits to havens not covered by a treaty with their home country. The crackdown thus caused a relocation of deposits at the benefit of the least compliant havens. We discuss the policy implications of these findings.