Tax havens and the commercialisation of state sovereignty

Over the past three decades there has been a spectacular rise in the number of microstates serving as tax havens and bogus locations for actual or phantom corporations. Most, but not all, of these havens — these “paradis fisscaux” as the French, with some irony, call them are small tourist resorts. Of the seventy or so tax havens identi ed in recent counts, most serve as mere booking centers for the larger nancial centers of London, Tokyo, and New York. Yet the combined effect of tax havens on the world economy is staggering: According to some estimates, as much as half of the world's stock of money either resides in tax havens or passes through them.