Full coffers give governments little incentive to privatise, deregulate or make public accounts transparent, all long-standing demands of both foreign and local investors.

ECONOMIST: A high oil price will delay reforms

Pyongyang, however, has yet to respond to Kim's overtures in any meaningful way, and the GNP charges that the Hyundai venture has done little more than fill the coffers of the North's military.

CNN: Evaluating Kim

Mr Ecevit has little public support, and the public coffers are worryingly empty.

ECONOMIST: Turkey

Smoking an addictive, deadly behavior that lines the coffers of companies that do little if any good for the world somehow persists as a pose of rebellion.

FORBES: Nicotine Addiction And The Birth Of Modern Medicine

Relatively little of the money raised goes into the coffers of the listed firm.

ECONOMIST: Corporate finance

By asking at the hotel and then doing a little research, it appears that the national coffers are missing at least 30 billion euros a year to tax evasion.

FORBES: Cash Is Zeus: A Postcard From Greece

But in practice little of the billions hoped for has reached government coffers.

ECONOMIST: Kidnapping and murder are the drug-dealers�� weapons

Very little grew in or left Egypt without in some way enriching the royal coffers.

WSJ: Still Under Cleopatra's Spell

Refilling depleted tax coffers at the federal, state and local levels would be little more than a happy side-effect.

FORBES: Creating a "Politics of Abundance" to Match Technology Innovation