IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejapp/v9y2017i4p30-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Use of Violence in Illegal Markets: Evidence from Mahogany Trade in the Brazilian Amazon

Author

Listed:
  • Ariaster B. Chimeli
  • Rodrigo R. Soares

Abstract

We provide evidence on the effect of market illegality on violence. Brazil was historically the main exporter of mahogany. Starting in the 1990s, trade was restricted and eventually prohibited. We build on previous evidence that mahogany trade persisted after prohibition and document relative increases in violence in areas with natural occurrence of mahogany. We show that as illegal activity receded in the late 2000s so did the relative increase in violence. We describe an experience of increase in violence following the transition of a market from legal to illegal and contribute to the evaluation of prohibition policies under limited enforcement.

Suggested Citation

  • Ariaster B. Chimeli & Rodrigo R. Soares, 2017. "The Use of Violence in Illegal Markets: Evidence from Mahogany Trade in the Brazilian Amazon," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 30-57, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:9:y:2017:i:4:p:30-57
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.20160055
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20160055
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=J_vERa9EjiH9G4b-7vhGebkp4l_aM2Bu
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=gzUhe8yRBwJ46avGNsKayHR64mi2D7TO
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=e_sS6We2jH35pTWs3JHS7fvmfgruTHB0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward L. Glaeser & Andrei Shleifer, 2001. "A Reason for Quantity Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 431-435, May.
    2. Ariaster B. Chimeli & Roy G. Boyd, 2010. "Prohibition and the Supply of Brazilian Mahogany," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(1), pages 191-208.
    3. Raymond Fisman & Shang-Jin Wei, 2004. "Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from "Missing Imports" in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 471-500, April.
    4. Soares, Rodrigo R., 2004. "Development, crime and punishment: accounting for the international differences in crime rates," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 155-184, February.
    5. Lee J. Alston & Bernardo Mueller, 2010. "Property Rights, Land Conflict and Tenancy in Brazil," NBER Working Papers 15771, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    7. Donohue, John J, III & Levitt, Steven D, 1998. "Guns, Violence, and the Efficiency of Illegal Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 463-467, May.
    8. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    9. Erwin H. Bulte & G. Cornelis van Kooten, 1999. "Economics of Antipoaching Enforcement and the Ivory Trade Ban," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(2), pages 453-466.
    10. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    11. Jeffrey A. Miron & Jeffrey Zwiebel, 1995. "The Economic Case against Drug Prohibition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 175-192, Fall.
    12. Alberto Abadie, 2005. "Semiparametric Difference-in-Differences Estimators," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 1-19.
    13. Jérôme Adda & Brendon McConnell & Imran Rasul, 2014. "Crime and the Depenalization of Cannabis Possession: Evidence from a Policing Experiment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(5), pages 1130-1202.
    14. Medina, Carlos & Martínez, Hermes, 2003. "Violence and Drug Prohibition in Colombia," MPRA Paper 6935, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Ferrantino, Michael J. & Liu, Xuepeng & Wang, Zhi, 2012. "Evasion behaviors of exporters and importers: Evidence from the U.S.–China trade data discrepancy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 141-157.
    16. Alston, Lee J. & Libecap, Gary D. & Mueller, Bernardo, 2000. "Land Reform Policies, the Sources of Violent Conflict, and Implications for Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 162-188, March.
    17. Stefano DellaVigna & Eliana La Ferrara, 2010. "Detecting Illegal Arms Trade," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 26-57, November.
    18. 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.
    19. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy & Michael Grossman, 2006. "The Market for Illegal Goods: The Case of Drugs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 38-60, February.
    20. John J. Donohue III & Benjamin Ewing & David Pelopquin, 2010. "Rethinking America's Illegal Drug Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 215-281, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Miron, Jeffrey A, 2001. "Violence, Guns, and Drugs: A Cross-Country Analysis," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 615-633, October.
    22. Philip Keefer & Norman Loayza, 2010. "Innocent Bystanders : Developing Countries and the War on Drugs," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2420.
    23. Emily Greene Owens, 2011. "Are Underground Markets Really More Violent? Evidence from Early 20th Century America," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 13(1), pages 1-44.
    24. Alberto Abadie & Javier Gardeazabal, 2003. "The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 113-132, March.
    25. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bruijn, L. Michelle & Ribas, Rafael P., 2022. "“No drugs in my back yard:” The ambivalent reception of cannabis retailers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 103-121.
    2. Huber III Arthur & Newman Rebecca & LaFave Daniel, 2016. "Cannabis Control and Crime: Medicinal Use, Depenalization and the War on Drugs," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(4), pages 1-35, October.
    3. Dietrichson, Jens & Ellegård, Lina Maria, 2015. "Assist or desist? Conditional bailouts and fiscal discipline in local governments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 153-168.
    4. Erlend E. Bø & Joel Slemrod & Thor O. Thoresen, 2015. "Taxes on the Internet: Deterrence Effects of Public Disclosure," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 36-62, February.
    5. Lamar Pierce & Daniel C. Snow & Andrew McAfee, 2015. "Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology Monitoring on Employee Theft and Productivity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(10), pages 2299-2319, October.
    6. Luis Aguiar & Jörg Claussen & Christian Peukert, 2018. "Catch Me If You Can: Effectiveness and Consequences of Online Copyright Enforcement," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 656-678, September.
    7. Nicolaj N. Mühlbach, 2020. "Tree-based Synthetic Control Methods: Consequences of moving the US Embassy," CREATES Research Papers 2020-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    8. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto & Vitor Possebom, 2020. "Cherry Picking with Synthetic Controls," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 510-532, March.
    9. Martin Huber, 2019. "An introduction to flexible methods for policy evaluation," Papers 1910.00641, arXiv.org.
    10. Matthias Parey & Imran Rasul, 2021. "Measuring the Market Size for Cannabis: A New Approach Using Forensic Economics," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(350), pages 297-338, April.
    11. Edward M. Shepard & Paul R. Blackely, 2010. "Economics of Crime and Drugs: Prohibition and Public Policies for Illicit Drug Control," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Dennis Shen & Peng Ding & Jasjeet Sekhon & Bin Yu, 2022. "Same Root Different Leaves: Time Series and Cross-Sectional Methods in Panel Data," Papers 2207.14481, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    13. Shinde, Nilesh N. & Do Valle, Stella Z. Schons & Maia, Alexandre Gori & Amacher, Gregory S., 2022. "Can an environmental policy contribute to the reduction of land conflict? Evidence from the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) in the Brazilian Amazon," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322584, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Villa, Juan M., 2014. "Social transfers and growth: The missing evidence from luminosity data," WIDER Working Paper Series 090, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Yixin Lu & Alok Gupta & Wolfgang Ketter & Eric van Heck, 2019. "Information Transparency in Business-to-Business Auction Markets: The Role of Winner Identity Disclosure," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4261-4279, September.
    16. Bobonis, Gustavo J. & Stabile, Mark & Tovar, Leonardo, 2020. "Military training exercises, pollution, and their consequences for health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    17. Jakob de Haan & Rasmus Wiese, 2022. "The impact of product and labour market reform on growth: Evidence for OECD countries based on local projections," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 746-770, June.
    18. Peter Backus & Thien Nguyen, 2021. "The Effect of the Sex Buyer Law on the Market for Sex, Sexual Health and Sexual Violence," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2106, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    19. Myriã Tatiany Neves Bast & Sergio Naruhiko Sakurai, 2016. "Uma Avaliação Empírica Dos Efeitos Dos Empréstimos Do Bndes Aos Governos Municipais Brasileiros," Anais do XLIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 43rd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 064, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    20. Myoung-jae Lee & Yasuyuki Sawada, 2020. "Review on Difference in Differences," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 36, pages 135-173.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • L73 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Forest Products
    • 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
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • Q23 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Forestry

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. The Use of Violence in Illegal Markets: Evidence from Mahogany Trade in the Brazilian Amazon (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2017) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:aea:aejapp:v:9:y:2017:i:4:p:30-57. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.