External Debt and Capital Flight in the Indian Economy

Abstract

This paper estimates Indian capital flight at US $88 billion (in 1997 dollars) over the 1971‐97 period, a sum that is roughly 20% of the US $448 billion real external debt disbursed to the country over the same time period. There is also evidence of a strong year-to-year correlation between debt inflows and flight-capital outflows. The paper explores the nature of this association between capital flight and external debt in the Indian economy. An analysis by Boyce (1992, World Development, 20, pp. 335‐349) for the Philippines revealed the presence of contemporaneous bi-directional causality, in other words, a financial revolving door relationship between external debt and capital flight in that economy. The research question addressed by this paper is whether such a financial revolving door relationship exists in India, given its higher level of external indebtedness and lower debt-to-GNP ratio as compared with the Philippines. Utilizing a simultaneous equation model to examine the association between capital flight and external debt in the Indian economy, the paper confirms the existence of a financial revolving door relationship between the two endogenous variables.

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