This study provides a new way to examine the impact illicit financial flows (IFFs) have on developing country economies.Illicit financial flows (IFFs), stemming from crime, corruption, and tax evasion, have an outsized impact on the world’s poorest countries, according to a new study released today by Global Financial Integrity (GFI). The report also finds strong correlations between higher illicit outflows and higher levels of poverty and economic inequality.“Illicit financial flows have an outsized impact on the poorest countries in the world,”.“The value of the study is that it goes beyond ‘the big number’ of cumulative global illicit outflows and focuses instead on the impact of IFFs in the poorest of places. A lot of attention gets paid to the massive amount of illicit money flowing out of China, Russia, and other major emerging markets. However, on a relative basis, when you compare illicit financial flows to major development indices like GDP, FDI, and total trade, it becomes extremely clear that illicit outflows take a particularly devastating toll on the world’s poorest economies.”, the report compares illicit outflows from the world’s poorest economies to some traditional indicators of development—including GDP, total trade, official development assistance plus foreign direct investment, public expenditures on education and health services, and total tax revenue, among others—for the years 2008–2012, the most recent five-year period for which data are currently available.“