Our aim is to explain how a small country can be viable as an international banking center (IBC). We build a model in which mobile investors choose between two banking centers located respectively in a small country and in a large country. These countries compete in two instruments, taxation and...

Our aim is to explain how a small country can be viable as an international banking center (IBC). We build a model in which mobile investors choose between two banking centers located respectively in a small country and in a large country. These countries compete in two instruments, taxation and...

We study the impact of an offshore financial center on the economy in the presence or absence of bank secrecy in a two-country setting with heterogeneous investors who choose where to deposit their savings. Rather than focussing on tax competition, we acknowledge that countries use two...

This paper explains why and how a small country can be an offshore financial center (OFC). We build a model involving a small and a large country competing for portfolio investments. They use two instruments, taxation and institutional infrastructure. We identify the conditions for an OFC to be...