Economic Studies Division
CARTABLANCA LABS

Independent economic research.

We aggregate public data that is rarely read, make it legible, and publish what the numbers say — without inference of intent, without political position, without institutional affiliation. The data is the argument.

Study 001 · 2026
Flows
Where the money goes
A forensic analysis of UN system financial flows — $777 billion across 14 years, 48 entities, 222 donors. Every figure from primary public sources.
$777B
tracked · 2011–2024
48
UN entities
14
years of data
10
primary sources
About

Why we do this.

Large institutions generate large amounts of data. Most of it is published — by obligation, by statute, by the institutions themselves. Almost none of it is read, aggregated, or presented in a form that makes the patterns visible to anyone outside the institutions that generate it.

Cartablanca Labs exists to close that gap. We take public data — from international institutions, governments, and statistical bodies — and do the work of making it legible: cleaning, aggregating, cross-referencing, and visualising until the structural patterns become readable.

We do not have a policy position. We do not advocate. We do not infer intent. We publish what the data shows, cite every source, document every limitation, and leave the interpretation to those who read it.

The name: carta blanca — a blank page. What you write on it is what the evidence allows.

Principles
01 Primary sources only. Every figure is traceable to an official statistical publication. No estimates, no imputations, no generated data.
02 Report, don't interpret. We report what is published. We measure what is published against declared methodology. We flag what is mandated and missing. We do not infer intent.
03 Document the limits. Every study includes a formal methodology note listing known gaps, limitations, and what the analysis cannot claim.
04 Fully reproducible. Anyone with access to the cited primary sources can replicate every number in every study. That is the test.
05 Respectful tone, always. The individuals who work within these systems are not the subject of analysis. The structures are.