The Hidden Wealth of Nations

A "masterful" work that quantifies the cost of tax havens and large-scale tax evasion to ordinary citizens, and explores solutions to the problem (American Prospect).

One much-discussed solution to the rapidly growing problem of economic inequality is to significantly increase the rate at which we tax the wealthy. But with an enormous amount of the world's wealth hidden in tax havens—in countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands—this wealth cannot be fully accounted for and taxed fairly. No one, from economists to bankers to politicians, has been able to quantify exactly how much of the world's assets are currently hidden—until now. Gabriel Zucman is the first economist to offer reliable insight into the actual extent of the world's money held in tax havens. And it's staggering.


Fighting the notion that any attempts to vanquish tax havens are futile since some countries will always offer more advantageous tax rates than others, as well the counter-argument that tax havens have disappeared since the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, Zucman shows how both sides are actually very wrong. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations he offers an ambitious agenda for reform, focused on ways in which countries can change the incentives of tax havens. Only by first understanding the enormity of the secret wealth can we begin to estimate the kind of actions that would force tax havens to give up their practices.


Zucman's work has quickly become the gold standard for quantifying the amount of the world's assets held in havens. In this concise book, he lays out in approachable language how the international banking system works and the dangerous extent to which the large-scale evasion of taxes is undermining the global market as a whole. If we are to find a way to solve the problem of increasing inequality, The Hidden Wealth of Nations is essential reading.


"Unusually lucid and elegant prose—particularly for an economist—complemented by an admirable grasp of history. His review of the ways that efforts to combat tax evasion have stalled for the past century makes the book a worthwhile read in and of itself. . . . Zucman is still at the beginning of what promises to be a brilliant career." ―The Atlantic