International development organizations largely agree that illicit capital flight from developing countries is an obstacle for development. And transparency is commonly seen as the best way to tackle the issue. But is it enough? Tax havens have been in the headlines in recent years: ‘Panama Papers’, ‘Paradise Papers’, ‘Luxemburg Leaks’, and so forth. Tax havens are territories offering low taxation combined with high banking secrecy. This makes it both...

Four years ago, in 2014, Juan Villa spent three months at UNU-WIDER in our PhD Fellowship Programme. I spoke to him on a sunny September afternoon while he was back in Helsinki for the Think development - Think WIDER conference about his journey since his studies, and about what’s next. Juan grew up in Colombia, then attended the University of Manchester as an international student, where he completed his PhD. After his PhD he moved to Washington DC where he worked as a social...