IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v103y1995i2p261-79.html

The Price Elasticity of Hard Drugs: The Case of Opium in the Dutch East Indies, 1923-1938

Author

Listed:
  • van Ours, Jan C

Abstract

At the beginning of this century, the Dutch government controlled the opium market in the Dutch East Indies--nowadays Indonesia--for several decades. This state monopoly was called the opiumregie. Using information gathered during the opiumregie, this paper estimates price elasticities of opium consumption. It appears that short-term price elasticities of opium use are about -0.7. Long-term price elasticities are about -1.0. Copyright 1995 by University of Chicago Press.

Suggested Citation

  • van Ours, Jan C, 1995. "The Price Elasticity of Hard Drugs: The Case of Opium in the Dutch East Indies, 1923-1938," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(2), pages 261-279, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:103:y:1995:i:2:p:261-79
    DOI: 10.1086/261983
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/261983
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE for details.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/261983?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miron, Jeffrey A & Zwiebel, Jeffrey, 1991. "Alcohol Consumption during Prohibition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 242-247, May.
    2. White, Michael D & Luksetich, William A, 1983. "Heroin: Price Elasticity and Enforcement Strategies," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 21(4), pages 557-564, October.
    3. Chaloupka, Frank, 1991. "Rational Addictive Behavior and Cigarette Smoking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 722-742, August.
    4. Clague, Christopher, 1973. "Legal Strategies for Dealing with Heroin Addiction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 263-269, May.
    5. Moore, Mark H, 1973. "Policies to Achieve Discrimination on the Effective Price of Heroin," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 270-277, May.
    6. Boyer, Marcel, 1983. "Rational demand and expenditures patterns under habit formation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 27-53, October.
    7. Becker, Gary S & Grossman, Michael & Murphy, Kevin M, 1991. "Rational Addiction and the Effect of Price on Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 237-241, May.
    8. Becker, Gary S & Grossman, Michael & Murphy, Kevin M, 1991. "Rational Addiction and the Effect of Price on Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 237-241, May.
    9. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    10. Becker, Gary S & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "A Theory of Rational Addiction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(4), pages 675-700, August.
    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. Luijk, E.W. & Ours, J.C., 1993. "How to control drugs : the lessons from the 'Opiumregie' in the Dutch East Indies (1894-1940)," Serie Research Memoranda 0030, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    2. Pierre Kopp, 1994. "Consommation de drogue et efficacité des politiques publiques," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 45(6), pages 1333-1356.
    3. Ziggy MacDonald, 2004. "What Price Drug Use? The Contribution of Economics to an Evidence‐Based Drugs Policy," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 113-152, April.
    4. D. Dragone & D. Raggi, 2018. "Testing Rational Addiction: When Lifetime is Uncertain, One Lag is Enough," Working Papers wp1119, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    5. Fethke, Gary & Jagannathan, Raj, 1996. "Habit persistence, heterogeneous tastes, and imperfect competition," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 20(6-7), pages 1193-1207.
    6. Skott, Peter & Thorlund Jepsen, Gunnar, 2002. "Paradoxical effects of drug policy in a model with imperfect competition and switching costs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 335-354, August.
    7. Isao Yorozu & Yimin Zhou, 2002. "The Demand For Cigarettes In Japan: Impact Of Information Dissemination On Cigarette Consumption," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(1), pages 72-82, January.
    8. Löfgren, Åsa, 2003. "The Effect of Addiction on Environmental Taxation in a First and Second-best world," Working Papers in Economics 91, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    9. Peter Arcidiacono, Holger Sieg, Frank Sloan, 2001. "Living Rationally Under the Volcano? Heavy Drinking and Smoking Among the Elderly," Computing in Economics and Finance 2001 207, Society for Computational Economics.
    10. Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, 1998. "Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Consumption: Is There Really a Gateway Effect?," NBER Working Papers 6348, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Suranovic, Steven M. & Goldfarb, Robert S. & Leonard, Thomas C., 1999. "An economic theory of cigarette addiction," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-29, January.
    12. Beenstock, Michael & Rahav, Giora, 2002. "Testing Gateway Theory: do cigarette prices affect illicit drug use?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 679-698, July.
    13. Liu, Jin-Long & Liu, Jin-Tan & Hammitt, James K. & Chou, Shin-Yi, 1999. "The price elasticity of opium in Taiwan, 1914-1942," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 795-810, December.
    14. Ciccarelli, Carlo & Giamboni, Luigi & Waldmann, Robert, 2007. "Cigarette smoking, pregnancy, forward looking behavior and dynamic inconsistency," MPRA Paper 8878, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Luc Champarnaud & Philippe Michel, 2000. "Biens culturels, transmission de culture et croissance," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 76(4), pages 501-520.
    16. Wang Ruqu, 2007. "The Optimal Consumption and the Quitting of Harmful Addictive Goods," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-38, February.
    17. Chen Zhen & Michael K. Wohlgenant, 2006. "Meat Demand under Rational Habit Persistence," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 54(4), pages 477-495, December.
    18. Brian S. Ferguson, 2000. "Interpreting the rational addiction model," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(7), pages 587-598, October.
    19. Cook, Philip J. & Moore, Michael J., 2000. "Alcohol," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 30, pages 1629-1673, Elsevier.
    20. Jeffrey K. Sarbaum & Solomon W. Polachek & Norman E. Spear, 1999. "The Effects of Price Changes on Alcohol Consumption in Alcohol-Experienced Rats," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic Analysis of Substance Use and Abuse: An Integration of Econometric and Behavioral Economic Research, pages 75-102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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:ucp:jpolec:v:103:y:1995:i:2:p:261-79. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    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.