Description

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Originally developed to reduce drug trafficking, national and international efforts to reduce money laundering have broadened over the years to address other crimes, and most recently, terrorism. These efforts now constitute a formidable regime applied to financial institutions and transactions throughout much of the world. Yet few assessments of either the achievements or consequences of this regime have been made. Reuter and Truman (1) explore what is know about the scale and characteristics of money laundering, (2) describe the current anti-money laundering regime, (3) develop a framework for assessing the effectiveness of the regime, and (4) use that framework to assess how well the current system works and make proposals for its improvement.

About the Author

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Edwin M. Truman, nonresident senior fellow since July 2013, joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics as senior fellow in 2001. Previously he served as assistant secretary of the US Treasury for International Affairs from December 1998 to January 2001 and returned as counselor to the secretary March-May 2009. He directed the Division of International Finance of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1977 to 1998. From 1983 to 1998, he was one of three economists on the staff of the Federal Open Market Committee.