A FOREMOST RESEARCHER ON CAPITAL FLIGHT FROM AFRICA RECEIVES GLOBAL RECOGNITION

Distinguished Professor of Economics Léonce Ndikumana, considered by many to be one of the best-known and most widely respected African macroeconomists of his generation, has been named a 2021 Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Ndikumana is the first University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty member to receive the honor.

Ndikumana is one of the world’s foremost researchers on the critical problem of capital flight from African countries. Capital flight, the unrecorded outflow of capital from countries, is not only a domestic problem, but also a global issue, Ndikumana says. It is a subset of the broader phenomenon of illicit financial flows, which consists of funds that are illegally acquired, transferred and concealed abroad.

As a Carnegie Fellow, Ndikumana will investigate the macroeconomic and developmental impact of capital flight from African countries in greater depth through a new series of rigorous country studies. Part of this new research initiative would examine the enablers of such financial outflows, including the complicity of institutions in the Global North. “His ongoing work in this area will have enormous impact on how we think about financing for development and fits well into Carnegie’s suggested topical area of Global Connections and Global Ruptures,” the Carnegie Corporation said in a statement.

Source: University of Massachusetts Amherst