The Smuggling of Art, and the Art of Smuggling: Uncovering the Illicit Trade in Cultural Property and Antiques
Abstract
We empirically analyze the illicit trade in cultural property and antiques, taking advantage of different reporting incentives between source and destination countries. We thus generate a measure of illicit trafficking in these goods based on the difference between imports recorded in United States' customs data and the (purportedly identical) trade as recorded by customs authorities in exporting countries. We find that this reporting gap is highly correlated with the corruption level of the exporting country as measured by commonly used survey-based indicies, and that this correlation is stronger for artifact-rich countries. As a placebo test, we do not observe any such pattern for U.S. imports of toys from these same exporters. We report similar results for four other Western country markets. Our analysis provides a useful framework for studying trade in illicit goods. Further, our results provide empirical confirmation that survey-based corruption indicies are informative, as they are correlated with an objective measure of illicit activity.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13446.Length:
Date of creation: Sep 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13446
Note: ITI POL
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Raymond Fisman & Shang-Jin Wei, 2009. "The Smuggling of Art, and the Art of Smuggling: Uncovering the Illicit Trade in Cultural Property and Antiques," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 82-96, July.
- F1 - International Economics - - Trade
- K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
- O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
- Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2007-10-06 (All new papers)
- NEP-CUL-2007-10-06 (Cultural Economics)
- NEP-INT-2007-10-06 (International Trade)
- NEP-LAW-2007-10-06 (Law & Economics)
- NEP-REG-2007-10-06 (Regulation)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- De Sousa, José & Mayer, Thierry & Zignago, Soledad, 2012.
"Market Access in Global and Regional Trade,"
CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb)
1201, CEPREMAP.
- de Sousa, José & Mayer, Thierry & Zignago, Soledad, 2012. "Market access in global and regional trade," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1037-1052.
- de Sousa, J. & Mayer, T. & Zignago, S., 2011. "Market access in global and regional trade," Working papers 358, Banque de France.
- Thierry Mayer & Soledad Zignago, 2005. "Market Access in Global and Regional Trade," Working Papers 2005-02, CEPII research center.
- de Sousa, José & Mayer, Thierry & Zignago, Soledad, 2012. "Market Access in Global and Regional Trade," CEPR Discussion Papers 9085, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
- De Sousa, Jose & Mayer, Thierry & Zignago, Soledad, 2011. "Market access in global and regional trade," MPRA Paper 35602, University Library of Munich, Germany.
- Raymond Fisman & Edward Miguel, 2007. "Corruption, Norms, and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 1020-1048, December.
- Prachi Mishra & Arvind Subramanian & Petia Topalova, 2007. "Policies, Enforcement, and Customs Evasion: Evidence from India," IMF Working Papers 07/60, International Monetary Fund.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Helge Berger & Volker Nitsch, 2008.
"Gotcha! A Profile of Smuggling in International Trade,"
CESifo Working Paper Series
2475, CESifo Group Munich.
- Berger, Helge & Nitsch, Volker, 2008. "Gotcha!: a profile of smuggling in international trade," Discussion Papers 2008/6, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
- Helge Berger & Volker Nitsch, 2008. "Gotcha! A Profile of Smuggling in International Trade," DEGIT Conference Papers c013_026, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
- Olaf J. de Groot & Matthew D. Rablen & Anja Shortland, 2011.
"Gov-aargh-nance: "Even Criminals Need Law and Order","
Economics of Security Working Paper Series
46, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
- de Groot, Olaf J. & Rablen, Matthew D. & Shortland, Anja, 2011. "Gov-Aargh-Nance – “Even Criminals Need Law And Order”," NEPS Working Papers 7/2011, Network of European Peace Scientists.
- Olaf J. de Groot & Matthew D. Rablen & Anja Shortland, 2011. "Gov-aargh-nance - "even criminals need law and order"," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 11-01, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.
- Robert C. Feenstra & Shang-Jin Wei, 2010.
"Introduction to "China's Growing Role in World Trade","
NBER Chapters,
in: China's Growing Role in World Trade, pages 1-31
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Robert C. Feenstra & Shang-Jin Wei, 2009. "Introduction to “China’s Growing Role in World Trade”," NBER Working Papers 14716, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Anja Shortland & Sarah Percy, 2012. "Counter-Piracy in Somalia: Help or Hindrance?," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 12-03, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.
- Jiro Honda, 2008. "Do IMF Programs Improve Economic Governance?," IMF Working Papers 08/114, International Monetary Fund.
- Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza, 2009.
"Illegal trade in the Iranian economy: Evidence from a structural model,"
European Journal of Political Economy,
Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 489-507, December.
- Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2008. "Illegal Trade in the Iranian Economy: Evidence from a Structural Model," Working Papers 409, Economic Research Forum, revised Jun 2008.
- Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, 2008. "Illegal Trade in the Iranian Economy: Evidence from a Structural Model," CESifo Working Paper Series 2397, CESifo Group Munich.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13446For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().
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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

