This week I attended the 28th Africa Industrialization Day at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Even sympathetic readers may reasonably ask, why hold another African Industrialization Day at all? The short answer is Africa needs structural change to grow, to create jobs, and to reduce poverty, and the driving force behind structural change has historically been industry. The East Asian miracle was a manufacturing miracle. But Africa has had limited success in industrializing. Today...

International development organizations largely agree that illicit capital flight from developing countries is an obstacle for development. And transparency is commonly seen as the best way to tackle the issue. But is it enough? Tax havens have been in the headlines in recent years: ‘Panama Papers’, ‘Paradise Papers’, ‘Luxemburg Leaks’, and so forth. Tax havens are territories offering low taxation combined with high banking secrecy. This makes it both...