Expropriations, Property Confiscations and New Offshore Entities: Evidence from the Panama Papers
CESifo, Munich, 2018
CESifo Working Paper No. 7328
Using the Panama Papers, we show that the beginning of media reporting on expropriations and property confiscations in a country increases the probability that offshore entities are incorporated by agents from the same country in the same month. This result is robust to the use of country-year fixed effects and the exclusion of tax havens. Further analysis shows that the effect is driven by countries with non-corrupt and effective governments, which supports the notion that offshore entities are incorporated when reasonably well-intended and well-functioning governments become more serious about fighting organized crime by confiscating proceeds of crime.
Public Choice
Public Finance