WOWMA
Financiado
The Whiteness of Wealth Management: Colonial Economic Structure, Racism, and the...
The Whiteness of Wealth Management: Colonial Economic Structure, Racism, and the Emergence of Tax Havens in the Global South
Tropical islands are often stigmatized as tax havens. But only a few tropical islands are important exporters of financial services. This is surprising since many of them feature attributes associated with tax havenry. They are sm...
Tropical islands are often stigmatized as tax havens. But only a few tropical islands are important exporters of financial services. This is surprising since many of them feature attributes associated with tax havenry. They are small, sovereign, reachable from major financial centers within a few hours, and practice British common law. Why have so few applied tax havenry as a development strategy, nonetheless? Conventional wisdom suggests that political stability, often measured with contemporary indicators of good governance, makes the difference. The perception of political stability among foreign investors is, however, interwoven with racist biases. Previous research shows that tropical islands had to emphasize their British heritage, essentially a code for whiteness, to attract foreign capital during decolonization. WOWMA’s objective is thus to explain why some tropical island jurisdictions were better able than others to convey stability through an image of whiteness in this historical period. In contrast to previous research emphasizing the rule of law, WOWMA investigates the hypothesis that the absence of income taxes paired with white control over government distinguished emerging tax havens from other tropical islands. To this end, WOWMA (1) proposes a new theory on the emergence of tax havenry in the Global South, linking an island’s economic structure under colonial rule to the absence of income taxes and the persistence of white oligarchy; (2) applies causal inference methods on original historical data gathered from archival sources; and (3) probes the persistence of racist biases in investment decisions through conjoint experiments.The project provides unprecedented depth in the study of small island states’ political and economic development. It foregrounds the entanglement of racism with perceptions of political stability and develops new strategies for its measurement.
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Duración del proyecto: 59 meses
Fecha Inicio: 2024-04-01
Fecha Fin: 2029-03-31
Fecha Fin: 2029-03-31
Línea de financiación: concedida
El organismo HORIZON EUROPE notifico la concesión del proyecto el día 2024-04-01
Línea de financiación objetivo
El proyecto se financió a través de la siguiente ayuda:
ERC-2023-STG:
ERC STARTING GRANTS
Cerrada
hace 2 años
Presupuesto
El presupuesto total del proyecto asciende a
1M€
Líder del proyecto
LEUPHANA UNIVERSITAT LUNEBURG
No se ha especificado una descripción o un objeto social para esta compañía.
Perfil tecnológico
TRL
4-5
Perfil tecnológico
TRL
4-5