Africa > Uganda

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Abstract

Mounting external debt and large-scale capital flight have been at the forefront of Africa's economic problems since the 1980s. External Debt and Capital Flight in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by S. Ibi Ajayi and Mohsin S. Khan, takes a penetrating look at debt and capital flight during the 1990s in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. The book describes the size and composition of debt in the selected countries and examines the causes of the debt buildup. It also assesses the extent of capital flight and suggests ways of stemming the flight of financial resources.

Anke Hoeffler
,
Ms. Catherine A Pattillo
, and
Mr. Paul Collier
This paper sets flight capital in the context of portfolio choice, focusing upon the proportion of private wealth that is held abroad. There are large regional differences in this proportion, ranging from 5 percent in South Asia to 40 percent in Africa. We explain cross-country differences in portfolio choice by variables that proxy differences in the risk-adjusted rate of return on capital. We apply the results to four policy questions: how the East Asian crisis affected domestic capital outflows; herd effects; the effect of the IMF-World Bank debt relief initiative for heavily-indebted poor countries (HIPC) on capital repatriation; and why so much of Africa’s private wealth is held outside the continent.