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Does Legalization Reduce Black Market Activity? Evidence from a Global Ivory Experiment and Elephant Poaching Data

Author

Listed:
  • Solomon Hsiang
  • Nitin Sekar
Abstract
Black markets are estimated to represent a fifth of global economic activity, but their response to policy is poorly understood because participants systematically hide their actions. It is widely hypothesized that relaxing trade bans in illegal goods allows legal supplies to competitively displace illegal supplies, but a richer economic theory provides more ambiguous predictions. Here we evaluate the first major global legalization experiment in an internationally banned market, where a monitoring system established before the experiment enables us to observe the behavior of illegal suppliers before and after. International trade of ivory was banned in 1989, with global elephant poaching data collected by field researchers since 2003. A one-time legal sale of ivory stocks to China and Japan in 2008 was designed as an experiment, but its global impact has not been evaluated. We find that international announcement of the legal ivory sale corresponds with an abrupt ~66% increase in illegal ivory production across two continents, and a possible ten-fold increase in its trend. An estimated ~71% increase in ivory smuggling out of Africa corroborates this finding, while corresponding patterns are absent from natural elephant mortality, Chinese purchases of other precious materials, poaching of other species, and alternative explanatory variables. These data suggest the widely documented recent increase in elephant poaching likely originated with the legal sale. More generally, these results suggest that changes to producer costs and/or consumer demand induced by legal sales can have larger effects than displacement of illegal production in some global black markets, implying that partial legalization of banned goods does not necessarily reduce black market activity.

Suggested Citation

  • Solomon Hsiang & Nitin Sekar, 2016. "Does Legalization Reduce Black Market Activity? Evidence from a Global Ivory Experiment and Elephant Poaching Data," NBER Working Papers 22314, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22314
    Note: DEV EEE ITI LE PE
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Austin Strange & Bradley Parks & Michael J. Tierney & Andreas Fuchs & Axel Dreher & Vijaya Ramachandran, 2013. "China’s Development Finance to Africa: A Media-Based Approach to Data Collection," Working Papers 323, Center for Global Development.
    2. Robert W Burn & Fiona M Underwood & Julian Blanc, 2011. "Global Trends and Factors Associated with the Illegal Killing of Elephants: A Hierarchical Bayesian Analysis of Carcass Encounter Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(9), pages 1-10, September.
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    8. Kuziemko, Ilyana & Levitt, Steven D., 2004. "An empirical analysis of imprisoning drug offenders," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2043-2066, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Fuchs, Andreas & Dreher, Axel & Hodler, Roland & Parks, Bradley C. & Raschky, Paul, 2015. "Aid on Demand: African Leaders and the Geography of China s Foreign Assistance," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112838, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Mika Kurohata, 2020. "Effect of the CITES trade ban on preferences for ivory in Japan," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 22(3), pages 383-403, July.
    3. Harvey, Ross & Alden, Chris & Wu, Yu-Shan, 2017. "Speculating a Fire Sale: Options for Chinese Authorities in Implementing a Domestic Ivory Trade Ban," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 22-31.
    4. Wellner, Lukas & Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Parks, Bradley & Strange, Austin M., 2022. "Can aid buy foreign public support? Evidence from Chinese development finance," Kiel Working Papers 2214, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Heid, Benedikt & Márquez-Ramos, Laura, 2023. "International environmental agreements and imperfect enforcement: Evidence from CITES," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    6. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Hodler, Roland & Parks, Bradley C. & Raschky, Paul A. & Tierney, Michael J., 2019. "African leaders and the geography of China's foreign assistance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 44-71.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F18 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Environment
    • F55 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Institutional Arrangements
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • Q2 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation

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