Money Laundering and its Regulation

By Alberto Chong, Florencio Lopez‐de‐Silanes. 2007

131 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The recent wave of terrorist attacks has increased the attention paid to money laundering activities. Using several methodologies, this paper investigates empirically the determinants of money laundering and its regulation in over 80 countries by assembling a cross-country dataset on proxies for money laundering and the prevalence of feeding activities. The paper additionally constructs specific money laundering regulation indices based on available information on laws and their mechanisms of enforcement and measures their impact on money laundering proxies. The paper finds that tougher money laundering regulations, particularly those that criminalize feeding activities and improve disclosure, are linked to lower levels of money laundering across countries; the results are robust to potential endogeneity of money laundering regulation. The relevance of historical factors in explaining the variation of money laundering regulation across countries sheds light on theories of institutions and provides room for further action, particularly in the areas of the law that improve the impact of criminalization, including liability of intermediaries, reductions of the burden of proof and better disclosure.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/15b129f66616c55aefa6df8b598661cdd380c4f5

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. M. Meinzer
2. Alex Cobham
3. John Pender
4. Monica T. Whitty
5. S. Benin
6. E. Nkonya
7. D. Spielman
8. Regina Birner

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Alex Cobham
2. John Pender
3. Monica T. Whitty
4. S. Benin
5. D. Spielman
6. Regina Birner

Citations in the corpus

• Anatomy of the online dating romance scam (2015, background): “(female victims, Study 1) Turning victims into criminals Levi (2002) defined money laundering as “In essence, it encompasses any concealing of the proceeds of drug trafficking (or other serious crimes) beyond putting the loot visibly on the bed or in one’s domestic safe” (p.182).”
• The Financial Secrecy Index: Shedding New Light on the Geography of Secrecy (2015, background): “…the notion of beneficial ownership of assets and legal entities and structures has its roots in the anti–money laundering discourse that began in the 1990s (Blum et al. 1998; Cuellar 2003; Levi 2002; Pieth and Aiolfi 2003; Carrington and Shams 2008; Unger 2007; UN Office on Drugs and Crime 2007).”
• From Best Practice to Best Fit: A Framework for Designing and Analyzing Pluralistic Agricultural Advisory Services Worldwide (2009, methodology): “Some interesting indicators used by Dinar and Keynan (1998) include the rate of stability of producer groups and the financial performance of extension provider companies.”