Global Offshore Wealth, 2001-2023

Abstract

This paper constructs homogeneous time series of global household offshore wealth covering the 2001–2023 period, during which major international efforts were implemented to curb offshore tax evasion. We find that: (i) global offshore wealth remained broadly stable as a fraction of global GDP since 2001, following a sharp increase in the 1980s and 1990s; (ii) the location of offshore wealth changed markedly, with a decline in the share held in Switzerland and a rise of Asian financial centers, the United Kingdom, and the United States; and (iii) a growing fraction comes from developing countries.