Regulating Money Laundering and Tax Havens: The Role of Blacklisting

Since ten years, and more so, since September 11, 2001, international
organizations such as the IMF, OECD and EU try to combat harmful tax
competition, money laundering and terrorist financing. Blacklisting, the naming
and shaming of uncooperative countries, was one of the strategies used from the very beginning of this new policy area. An analysis of the black listed countries over time shows, that the black lists got shorter and shorter over time. In 2006, Myanmar was the only country listed for money laundering, until it was finally also removed from the list.

The paper wants to explore a) the reasons for removing large countries and
especially EU countries from the list b) the wanted and unwanted effects
blacklisting had for the named and shamed countries and discusses c) whether this necessarily means the end of blacklisting. We want to show d) a new way of
greylisting which might be more compatible with the international diplomatic
requirements. We developed a new indicator for rating countries with regard to
cooperative behavior for tackling money laundering, which might also allow for
benchmarking, a concept probably more accepted within the EU than blacklisting.