Follow the Money: How Tax Avoidances Distort Capital Flows and Fuel Financialization

Brad Setser is the Steven A. Tanenbaum Senior Fellow for International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served as the deputy assistant secretary for international economic analysis in the U.S. Treasury from 2011 to 2015. In this interview, Dr. Setser discusses how tax avoidance schemes by corporations could distort conventional understanding of cross-national capital flows, and how such capital flows through shell companies are driving international balance of payments. He argues we should pay more attention to external debt, particularly on exports and debt in foreign currency, rather than solely focusing on the government debt alone. He highlights the puzzling debt histories of two countries in particular: Japan, which should be in trouble but is not; and Argentina, which gets into trouble no matter what. We also touch on the important topics of progressive tax policies and how it’s entirely realistic to close down international tax loopholes. It’s noteworthy that Dr. Setser appears in the first chapter of Adam Tooze’s book of “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World” by Adam Tooze, whom we interviewed last spring. It’s very unfortunate that this is a relatively short interview, but we hope it can be an introduction to a vast and important field of issues that you may continue to learn about afterwards. This interview was recorded in March at the 2020 annual conference of the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance, and the theme was “Development Finance in Fragile States.” You may read more about Dr. Setser’s conference presentation on our webpage, and you can subscribe to his blog and newsletter “Follow the Money” on the webpage of Council on Foreign Relations.