IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceps/v44y2010i4p220-230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cobweb dynamics and price dispersion in illicit drug markets

Author

Listed:
  • Caulkins, Jonathan P.
  • Baker, David

Abstract

Extreme price dispersion is a hallmark of illegal drug markets, and this apparent contradiction to the law of one price has long puzzled drug market economists. We propose a novel explanation for this dispersion: the coupling of dealers' unwillingness to hold inventory with dealers' imperfect foresight concerning future prices and/or random lead times when "ordering" drugs from higher-level suppliers. Unwillingness to hold inventory means drug markets might operate consistent with a cobweb model. The classic cobweb model was inspired by the observation of cyclic (typically annual) fluctuations in commodity prices. However, with minor changes that make the model more realistic the resulting price trajectories can be highly variable or even chaotic, not just periodic. Cobweb dynamics can also amplify the variability created by supply chain disruptions.

Suggested Citation

  • Caulkins, Jonathan P. & Baker, David, 2010. "Cobweb dynamics and price dispersion in illicit drug markets," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 220-230, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:44:y:2010:i:4:p:220-230
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038-0121(10)00023-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Walsh, Patrick Paul & Whelan, Ciara, 1999. "Modelling Price Dispersion as an Outcome of Competition in the Irish Grocery Market," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 325-343, September.
    2. Hommes, Cars H., 1991. "Adaptive learning and roads to chaos : The case of the cobweb," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 127-132, June.
    3. Karen Clay & Ramayya Krishnan & Eric Wolff, 2001. "Prices and Price Dispersion on the Web: Evidence from the Online Book Industry," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(4), pages 521-539, December.
    4. Dave, Dhaval, 2006. "The effects of cocaine and heroin price on drug-related emergency department visits," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 311-333, March.
    5. Goeree, Jacob K. & Hommes, Cars H., 2000. "Heterogeneous beliefs and the non-linear cobweb model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 24(5-7), pages 761-798, June.
    6. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    7. Hommes, Cars H., 1998. "On the consistency of backward-looking expectations: The case of the cobweb," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(3-4), pages 333-362, January.
    8. Salop, S & Stiglitz, J E, 1982. "The Theory of Sales: A Simple Model of Equilibrium Price Dispersion with Identical Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1121-1130, December.
    9. Frank J. Chaloupka & Michael Grossman & John A. Tauras, 1999. "The Demand for Cocaine and Marijuana by Youth," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometric and Behavioral Economic Research, pages 133-156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Chaloupka, Frank J. & Grossman, Michael & Bickel, Warren K. & Saffer, Henry (ed.), 1999. "The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226100470, December.
    11. Steven D. Levitt & Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, 2000. "An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang's Finances," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 755-789.
    12. Erik Brynjolfsson & Michael D. Smith, 2000. "Frictionless Commerce? A Comparison of Internet and Conventional Retailers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(4), pages 563-585, April.
    13. Jonathan P. Caulkins & Gustav Feichtinger & Josef Haunschmied & Gernot Tragler, 2006. "Quality Cycles and the Strategic Manipulation of Value," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(4), pages 666-677, August.
    14. Mordecai Ezekiel, 1938. "The Cobweb Theorem," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 52(2), pages 255-280.
    15. Patrick Paul Walsh & Ciara Whelan, 1999. "Modelling Price Dispersion as an Outcome of Competition in the Irish Grocery Market," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 325-343, September.
    16. Caulkins, Jonathan P. & Hao, Haijing, 2008. "Modelling drug market supply disruptions: Where do all the drugs not go?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 251-270.
    17. Dave, Dhaval, 2008. "Illicit drug use among arrestees, prices and policy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 694-714, March.
    18. Frank J. Chaloupka & Michael Grossman & Warren K. Bickel & Henry Saffer, 1999. "Introduction to "The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometrics and Behavioral Economic Research"," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometric and Behavioral Economic Research, pages 1-14, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Karen Clay & Ramayya Krishnan & Eric Wolff, 2001. "Prices and Price Dispersion on the Web: Evidence from the Online Book Industry," NBER Chapters, in: E-commerce, pages 521-539, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Frank Chen & Zvi Drezner & Jennifer K. Ryan & David Simchi-Levi, 2000. "Quantifying the Bullwhip Effect in a Simple Supply Chain: The Impact of Forecasting, Lead Times, and Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(3), pages 436-443, March.
    21. Jonathan P. Caulkins & Benjamin Gurga & Christopher Little, 2009. "Economic analysis of drug transaction ‘cycles’ described by incarcerated UK drug dealers," Global Crime, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1-2), pages 94-112, February.
    22. Alan T. Sorensen, 2000. "Equilibrium Price Dispersion in Retail Markets for Prescription Drugs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 833-862, August.
    23. Fildes, Robert, 1992. "The evaluation of extrapolative forecasting methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 81-98, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ingrid Kubin & Laura Gardini, 2013. "Border collision bifurcations in boom and bust cycles," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 811-829, September.
    2. Zaremba, Łukasz, 2018. "Cobweb theorem in relation to the fruit market," Roczniki (Annals), Polish Association of Agricultural Economists and Agribusiness - Stowarzyszenie Ekonomistow Rolnictwa e Agrobiznesu (SERiA), vol. 2018(3).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ya-Ling Chiu & Jiangze Du & Jying-Nan Wang, 2022. "The Effects of Price Dispersion on Sales in the Automobile Industry: A Dynamic Panel Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, August.
    2. Anania, Giovanni & Nisticò, Rosanna, 2014. "Price dispersion and seller heterogeneity in retail food markets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 190-201.
    3. Anania, Giovanni & Nistico, Rosanna, 2012. "Price dispersion, search costs and consumers and sellers heterogeneity in retail food markets," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 125594, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Byrne, David P. & Martin, Leslie A., 2021. "Consumer search and income inequality," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    5. Anindya Ghose & Yuliang Yao, 2011. "Using Transaction Prices to Re-Examine Price Dispersion in Electronic Markets," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 269-288, June.
    6. Randy A. Nelson & Richard Cohen & Frederik Roy Rasmussen, 2007. "An Analysis of Pricing Strategy and Price Dispersion on the Internet," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 95-110, Winter.
    7. Craig A. Gallet, 2014. "Can Price Get The Monkey Off Our Back? A Meta‐Analysis Of Illicit Drug Demand," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(1), pages 55-68, January.
    8. Jason R. Blevins & Garrett T. Senney, 2019. "Dynamic selection and distributional bounds on search costs in dynamic unit‐demand models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(3), pages 891-929, July.
    9. Noel, Michael D. & Qiang, Hongjie, 2019. "The role of information in retail gasoline price dispersion," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 173-187.
    10. Anirban Sengupta & Steven Wiggins, 2006. "Airline Pricing, Price Dispersion and Ticket Characteristics On and Off the Internet," Working Papers 06-07, NET Institute, revised Oct 2006.
    11. Kenneth Gillingham, Hao Deng, Ryan Wiser, Naim Darghouth, Gregory Nemet, Galen Barbose, Varun Rai, and Changgui Dong, 2016. "Deconstructing Solar Photovoltaic Pricing," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    12. Michael A. Arnold & Christine Saliba, 2003. "Price Dispersion in Online Markets: The Case of College Textbooks," Working Papers 03-02, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    13. Jeffrey R. Brown & Austan Goolsbee, 2002. "Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 481-507, June.
    14. Sha Luo, 2009. "Price Dispersion in the Online Auction Markets," EERI Research Paper Series EERI_RP_2009_07, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    15. Giovanni Anania & Rosanna Nisticò, 2011. "Price Dispersion, Search Costs And Consumers And Sellers Heterogeneity In Retail Food Markets," Working Papers 201105, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    16. Tang, Zhulei & Smith, Michael D. & Montgomery, Alan, 2010. "The impact of shopbot use on prices and price dispersion: Evidence from online book retailing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 579-590, November.
    17. Gatti, J.R.J. & Kattuman, P., 2003. "Online Price Dispersion Within and Between Seven European Countries," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0343, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    18. Xulia González & Daniel Miles-Touya, 2018. "Price dispersion, chain heterogeneity, and search in online grocery markets," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 115-139, March.
    19. Lindgren, Charlie & Daunfeldt, Sven-Olov & Rudholm, Niklas, 2021. "Pricing In Retail Markets With Low Search Costs: Evidence From A Price Comparison Website," HFI Working Papers 18, Institute of Retail Economics (Handelns Forskningsinstitut).
    20. Erik Lehmann, 2003. "Pricing Behavior on the WEB: Evidence from Online Travel Agencies," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 379-396, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:44:y:2010:i:4:p:220-230. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/seps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.