A global assemblage of tax haven clusters: profit shifting, tax dodging and money laundering

In this paper, we examine tax haven clusters considering them as diverse but recognizable examples of about fifty phenomena worldwide rarely studied from an economic geography perspective. Three canonical but diverse examples of tax haven clusters are used for the analysis: Wilmington in Delaware (United States), Ireland (European Union), and Gibraltar (former European Union, now post-Brexit British Overseas Territory). The objects of study are not treated as being almost perfect expressions of the classical, canonical cluster configuration. On the contrary, we focus on the 'agentic' impulses of 'desire' motivating human action and use 'pattern recognition' to identify the features explaining these clusters and the 'agentic' actors motivating them. It is concluded that the characteristics of this type of clusters – tax haven clusters - require more recognition of the interactive and often innovative communication networks through which cluster members interact globally, given they exist within a global system akin to an 'assemblage'. Unlike other types of clusters, we confirm their extreme dependence on the legislation on which they are based as well as their fragility in the face of legislative changes imposed from the outside.