Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2018 Sep;2(9):1352-1357. doi: 10.1038/s41559-018-0497-3. Epub 2018 Aug 13.
The release of classified documents in the past years have offered a rare glimpse into the opaque world of tax havens and their role in the global economy. Although the political, economic and social implications related to these financial secrecy jurisdictions are known, their role in supporting economic activities with potentially detrimental environmental consequences have until now been largely ignored. Here, we combine quantitative analysis with case descriptions to elaborate and quantify the connections between tax havens and the environment, both in global fisheries and the Brazilian Amazon. We show that while only 4% of all registered fishing vessels are currently flagged in a tax haven, 70% of the known vessels implicated in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing are, or have been, flagged under a tax haven jurisdiction. We also find that between October 2000 and August 2011, 68% of all investigated foreign capital to nine focal companies in the soy and beef sectors in the Brazilian Amazon was transferred through one, or several, known tax havens. This represents as much as 90-100% of foreign capital for some companies investigated. We highlight key research challenges for the academic community that emerge from our findings and present a set of proposed actions for policy that would put tax havens on the global sustainability agenda.
过去几年中，机密文件的泄露让人们得以一窥避税天堂的神秘世界及其在全球经济中的作用。尽管这些金融保密司法管辖区的政治、经济和社会影响众所周知，但它们在支持可能对环境造成不利影响的经济活动方面的作用迄今为止在很大程度上被忽视了。在这里，我们结合定量分析和案例描述，详细阐述和量化了避税天堂与环境之间的联系，包括在全球渔业和巴西亚马逊地区的联系。我们发现，虽然目前只有 4%的注册渔船在避税天堂注册，但在已知的涉嫌非法、未报告和无管制捕捞的船只中，有 70%或曾经在避税天堂注册。我们还发现，在 2000 年 10 月至 2011 年 8 月期间，巴西亚马逊地区九个大豆和牛肉焦点公司中，有 68%的调查外资是通过一个或多个已知的避税天堂转移的。对于一些被调查的公司来说，这代表着高达 90-100%的外资。我们强调了学术界从我们的研究结果中产生的关键研究挑战，并提出了一系列针对政策的行动建议，以使避税天堂成为全球可持续性议程的一部分。
