Research and analysis

The Tax Justice Network has published the Financial Secrecy Index every two years since 2009. In addition to being widely covered in the international media, the index is increasingly cited in academic and policy research. It is used in a number of important broader indices, such as the Center for Global Development’s Commitment to Development Index and the Basel Anti-Money Laundering Index published by the International Centre for Asset Recovery. In addition, the index is used for risk analysis by a range of private consultancies and at least two central banks.

Policy

Article 6 of Resolution 342 of the Andean Parliament states: "ARTICLE SIX. It is important to promote discussions on financial transparency, as well as to identify and develop expanded criteria on this matter, which allow monitoring the cross-border behaviour of the taxpayers of the member countries. In this regard, we welcome the efforts made by civil society in the development of new tools such as the Financial Secrecy Index".

2030 Watch, a data portal for monitoring the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda at national level, created and maintained by Open Knowledge Foundation Germany tracking states' progress on the 2030 SDG Indicators uses the Financial Secrecy Index as one of its sub-indicators for Indicator/Goal 16 - Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.

The Global Financial Centres Index uses the Financial Secrecy Index as one of the components for its Business Environment scores.

The 2015 report of the Economic Commission for Africa’s High Level Panel on Illicit Flows out of Africa, chaired by H.E. Thabo Mbeki, included the first major publication of a pioneering analysis of illicit financial flow (IFF) risk, which by combining Financial Secrecy Index secrecy scores with bilateral data on trade, investment and banking stocks and flows, establishes the relative IFF vulnerability in each area.

The background paper for the 2014 Tana High Level Forum on Security in Africa, which took illicit financial flows as its theme, had earlier presented related analysis and offered specific regional policy recommendations.

In its 2014 Trade and Development Report, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has widely referred to the Financial Secrecy Index (p. 172).

Center for Global Development's Commitment to Development Index uses the Financial Secrecy Index as one component to assess the development-friendliness of 27 OECD-members.

The Basel Anti-money laundering index by the Basel Institute of Governance includes the Financial Secrecy Index in its assessment of money laundering risk.

The 2013 edition of OECD’s Bribery and Corruption Awareness Handbook for Tax Examiners and Tax Auditors mentions a high score on the Financial Secrecy Index as an external environment indicator for a high risk country (see first note on page 25 of the OECD handbook).

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) as extensively referenced the Financial Secrecy Index in its 2012 report "Promoting an appropriate policy on tax havens" (see pages 11, 16-19).

The French Parliament and Senate has referenced the Financial Secrecy Index various times, for instance the Assemblée Nationale (here) or the Senate in its report by the investigative commission on capital and tax flight (Rapport au nom de la commission d’enquête sur l’évasion des capitaux et des actifs hors de France et ses incidences fiscales, Président M. Philippe Dominati, Rapporteur M. Éric Bocquet, Sénateurs).

Two pioneering German sustainability rating agencies, imug and oekom research, have incorporated the Financial Secrecy Index in their rating process on bank bonds (imug) and in their country ratings (oekom research).

The responsible investment network EIRIS has included the Financial Secrecy Index in its Country Sustainability Ratings.

In their 2015 report "Towards a Responsible Taxation Policy for the European Investment Bank", civil society organisations recommend the EIB to include the Financial Secrecy Index for their country tax assessments (see pages 10 and 20).

The groundbreaking Fair Tax Mark, which assesses if companies pay their fair share of tax, uses the Financial Secrecy Index in their criteria for multinational companies headquartered in the UK.

The 2018 SDG Index and Dashboards included the Financial Secrecy Index’s Secrecy Score as one of its indicators for the sustainable development goal (SDG) 17. The Financial Secrecy Index is also referenced in the indicator profile.

Research

A journal article by Tax Justice Network’s Alex Cobham and Markus Meinzer, co-authored with Petr Janský, which introduces the Financial Secrecy Index and the concept of secrecy jurisdictions that can be placed on a spectrum of secrecy into the academic literature, was published by the journal Economic Geography. Cobham, Alex, Janský, Petr, and Meinzer, Markus (2015), The Financial Secrecy Index: Shedding New Light on the Geography of Secrecy, in: Economic Geography 91: 3, 281–303. doi:10.1111/ecge.12094. An ungated version is available in the CGD working paper series, here.

A journal article by Patrick Emmenegger reviewing three interrelated strands of literature on financial intransparency with a special emphasis given to one of its most prominent examples: Swiss-style banking secrecy. It uses the Financial Secrecy Index, particularly the application of the global scale weight, to explain the importance of and impact of Switzerland on overall, global financial intransparency: Emmenegger, Patrick (2014), The Politics of Financial Intransparency: The Case of Swiss Banking Secrecy. Swiss Polit Sci Rev, 20: 146–164. doi:10.1111/spsr.12092.

A journal article by Lukas Hakelberg analysing the impact of the political power of FATCA agreements to create pressure for Luxembourg and Austria to also enter into automatic exchange of information negotiations within the EU. It uses the Financial Secrecy Index to compare the secrecy rank of 16 major offshore centres, whether or not they have signed a FATCA agreement, and if they have endorsed the OECD CRS as an indication of the impact of FATCA in pushing adoption of automatic exchange of information with the EU.: Hakelberg, Lukas (2014), The power politics of international tax co-operation: Luxembourg, Austria and the automatic exchange of information, in: Journal of European Public Policy, 18 July 2014, p.1-20. doi: 0.1080/13501763.2014.941380.

This journal article by Petr Jansky argues that the qualitative indicators of the Financial Secrecy Index emerge as the best contribution to the newly renamed and updated finance component of the Commitment to Development Index (CDI). The CDI, published by the Center for Global Development, ranks rich countries on their policies which affect poor countries. This paper rationalizes the inclusion of indicators of policies affecting illicit financial flows in the CDI, namely the Financial Secrecy Index. Jansky, Petr (2015), Updating the Rich Countries' Commitment to Development Index: How They Help Poorer Ones Through Curbing Illicit Financial Flows, in: Social Indicators Research, 2015 Oct, Vol.124(1), pp.43-65. doi: 10.1007/s11205-014-0779-3.

A working paper by Leonard Seabrooke and Duncan Wigan discusses the Financial Secrecy Index and its strategic use by Tax Justice Network extensively in connecting and leveraging different network domains in its policy entrepreneurship and advocacy to push the relevant policy actors to tackle tax havens. Seabrooke, Leonard, and Wigan, Duncan (2013) ‘Emergent Entrepreneurs in Transnational Advocacy Networks: Professional Mobilization in the Fight for Global Tax Justice’, GR:EEN Working Paper No. 41, Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick.

This study by Muhammad Nurul Houqe, et al. that uses the Financial Secrecy Index as its measure for financial secrecy when analysing the impact of effect of mandatory IFRS adoption on earnings quality in countries which exhibit high financial secrecy. Their analysis finds that firms in a high-secrecy country tend to report higher abnormal accruals and earnings conservatism, which results in lower earnings quality : Houqe, Muhammad Nurul ; Monem, Reza M. ; Tareq, Mohammad ; van Zijl, Tony (2016), Secrecy and the impact of mandatory IFRS adoption on earnings quality in Europe, in: Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, December 2016, Vol.40, pp.476-490. doi:10.1016/j.pacfin.2016.08.002.

A journal article by Lukas Hakelberg and Max Schaub in Regulation and Governance uses the Financial Secrecy Index in addressing the question of whether the holding out of the US from the international automatic exchange framework CRS has effectively redistributed financial activity in favour of the US, and at the expense of other secrecy jurisdictions: Hakelberg, Lukas/Schaub, Max (2017): The Redistributive Impact of Hypocrisy in International Taxation: Hypocrisy and Redistribution, in: Regulation & Governance. doi:10.1111/rego.12156.

This journal article by Markus Blut, et al. uses the Financial Secrecy Index as an indicator of a country’s regulatory environment with regards to financial secrecy. Their analysis on the quality of e-service in online retailing indicate that e-service quality has four underlying dimensions (website design, fulfilment, customer service, and security/privacy) though their relevance for overall e-service quality is moderated by country-specific (uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, power distance, individualism), regulatory environment-specific (financial secrecy, rule of law), and industry-specific (services/goods, retailing/banking) factors as well as research-design factors.: Blut, Markus ; Chowdhry, Nivriti ; Mittal, Vikas ; Brock, Christian (2015), E-Service Quality: A Meta-Analytic Review, in: Journal of Retailing, December 2015, Vol.91(4), pp.679-700 doi:10.1016/j.jretai.2015.05.004.

A study on money laundering risk factors in Italy, Netherlands and UK included the secrecy score, in combination with other data, to measure opacity of business ownership structure: Ernesto U. Savona/Michele Riccardi (Eds.) 2017: Identifying and Assessing the Risk of Money Laundering in Europe. Final Report of Project IARM (Transcrime – Università Cattolica del Sacro), Milano, in: http://www.transcrime.it/pubblicazioni/iarm-identifying-and-assessing-the-risk-of-money-laundering-in-europe/; 21.12.2017.

Master thesis on "Financial Secrecy and Its Impact on Cross-Border Deposits" by Daniel Džmuráň: Džmuráň, Daniel 2017: Financial Secrecy and Its Impact on Cross-Border Deposits, in: https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/86407; 21.12.2017.

Book Chapter on the historical track record of the (in)consistency and (lack of) impact of tax haven blacklists: Meinzer, Markus 2016: Towards a Common Yardstick to Identify Tax Havens and to Facilitate Reform, in: Rixen, Thomas/Dietsch, Peter (Hrsg.): Global Tax Governance – What is Wrong with it, and How to Fix it, Colchester, 255-288.

The Italian Central Bank used the Financial Secrecy Index for research into the determinants of financial to tax havens: Cassetta, Alessia/Pauselli, Claudio/Rizzica, Lucia/Tonello, Marco 2014: Financial Flows to Tax Havens: Determinants and Anomalies (Banca D'Italia - Quaderni dell’antiriciclaggio - No.1), Rome, in: http://www.bancaditalia.it/UIF/pubblicazioni-uif/quaderni_analisi_studi/Financial_Flows_Tax_1/Quaderno_Analisi_studi_1.pdf; 20.10.2014.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York used the Financial Secrecy Index indicators to distinguish locations that have low taxes or weak transparency/high secrecy: Linda Goldberg, April Meehl 2019, 'Complexity in Large U.S. Banks', Staff Report No. 880, in: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr880.pdf; 25.3.2019.

An academic paper by Tax Justice Network's director John Christensen (2012: The Hidden Trillions: Secrecy, Corruption, and the Offshore Interface, in: Crime, Law and Social Change 57, 325-343).

A study prepared for Cayman Finance by Aaron Smallwood of U.Texas-Arlington in 2014, identifies four “major problems” with the Financial Secrecy Index, to which we have responded here.

The final report of the MORE Project “Mapping the risk of serious and organised crime infiltration in Europe” (by Transcrime and Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) uses the Financial Secrecy Index to determine the level of financial secrecy in EU member states.

In a recent working paper, Tax Justice Network’s Markus Meinzer and Miroslav Palanský together with Petr Janský develop a bilateral extension of the Financial Secrecy Index to show which secrecy jurisdictions supply most secrecy to which specific countries. They compare the results of the Bilateral Financial Secrecy Index with two recent international policy efforts: blacklisting of non-cooperative jurisdictions by the European Commission and automatic information exchange. Janský, Petr, Meinzer, Markus, and Palanský, Miroslav, (2018). Is Panama really your tax haven? Secrecy jurisdictions and the countries they harm. IES Working Paper 23/2018. Charles University, Prague.

Other

Professor Frank Barry, who refers to the Financial Secrecy Index in his lecture (see minute 8:30, here).