IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11737.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Underground Gun Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Philip J. Cook
  • Jens Ludwig
  • Sudhir Venkatesh
  • Anthony A. Braga

Abstract

This paper provides an economic analysis of underground gun markets drawing on interviews with gang members, gun dealers, professional thieves, prostitutes, police, public school security guards and teens in the city of Chicago, complemented by results from government surveys of recent arrestees in 22 cities plus administrative data for suicides, homicides, robberies, arrests and confiscated crime guns. We find evidence of considerable frictions in the underground market for guns in Chicago. We argue that these frictions are due primarily to the fact that the underground gun market is both illegal and "thin" -- the number of buyers, sellers and total transactions is small and relevant information is scarce. Gangs can help overcome these market frictions, but the gang's economic interests cause gang leaders to limit supply primarily to gang members, and even then transactions are usually loans or rentals with strings attached.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip J. Cook & Jens Ludwig & Sudhir Venkatesh & Anthony A. Braga, 2005. "Underground Gun Markets," NBER Working Papers 11737, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11737
    Note: CH EH LE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11737.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gan, Li & Zhang, Qinghua, 2006. "The thick market effect on local unemployment rate fluctuations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 127-152, July.
    2. Anne Morrison Piehl & Suzanne J. Cooper & Anthony A. Braga & David M. Kennedy, 2003. "Testing for Structural Breaks in the Evaluation of Programs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 550-558, August.
    3. Diamond, Peter A, 1982. "Aggregate Demand Management in Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 881-894, October.
    4. Gan, Li & Li, Qi, 2016. "Efficiency of thin and thick markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 192(1), pages 40-54.
    5. Mark Duggan, 2001. "More Guns, More Crime," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 1086-1114, October.
    6. Donohue John, 2004. "Clinton and Bush's Report Cards on Crime Reduction: The Data Show Bush Policies Are Undermining Clinton Gains," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-10, September.
    7. Roland G. Fryer & Paul S. Heaton & Steven D. Levitt & Kevin M. Murphy, 2005. "Measuring the Impact of Crack Cocaine," NBER Working Papers 11318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. repec:pri:indrel:dsp010p096690c is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Philip J. Cook & Jens Ludwig & Adam Samaha, 2010. "Gun Control after "Heller": Litigating against Regulation," NBER Chapters, in: Regulation vs. Litigation: Perspectives from Economics and Law, pages 103-135, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Brendan O'Flaherty & Rajiv Sethi, 2010. "Peaceable Kingdoms and War Zones: Preemption, Ballistics and Murder in Newark," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America, pages 305-353, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jens Ludwig & Jeffrey R. Kling, 2007. "Is Crime Contagious?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(3), pages 491-518.
    5. Philip J. Cook & Jens Ludwig, 2006. "Aiming for evidence-based gun policy," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 691-735.

    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. Philip A. Curry & Anindya Sen & George Orlov, 2016. "Crime, apprehension and clearance rates: Panel data evidence from Canadian provinces," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 481-514, May.
    2. FU, Shihe & DONG, Xiaofang & CHAI, Guojun, 2010. "Industry specialization, diversification, churning, and unemployment in Chinese cities," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 508-520, December.
    3. Gan, Li & Wang, Pengfei & Zhang, Qinghua, 2018. "Market thickness and the impact of unemployment on housing market outcomes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 27-49.
    4. Philip J. Cook & Jens Ludwig, 2006. "Aiming for evidence-based gun policy," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 691-735.
    5. Cook, Philip J. & Ludwig, Jens, 2006. "The social costs of gun ownership," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 379-391, January.
    6. Alessandro Gavazza, 2011. "The Role of Trading Frictions in Real Asset Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1106-1143, June.
    7. Todd D. Kendall & Robert Tamura, 2010. "Unmarried Fertility, Crime, and Social Stigma," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(1), pages 185-221, February.
    8. Carlisle E. Moody, 2010. "Firearms and Homicide," Chapters, in: Bruce L. Benson & Paul R. Zimmerman (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Crime, chapter 17, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Ayça Akarçay Gürbüz & Sezgin Polat & Mustafa Ulus, 2014. "In Limbo: Exploring Transition to Discouragement," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 26(4), pages 527-551, September.
    10. Cook, Philip J. & Ludwig, Jens, 2006. "The social costs of gun ownership," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 379-391, January.
    11. Gan, Li & Li, Qi, 2016. "Efficiency of thin and thick markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 192(1), pages 40-54.
    12. Li Gan & Qinghua Zhang, 2006. "The Thick Market Effect on Housing Markets Transactions," NBER Working Papers 12134, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Leo H. Kahane, 2013. "Understanding The Interstate Export Of Crime Guns: A Gravity Model Approach," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(3), pages 618-634, July.
    14. Alexandra Fedorets & Franziska Lottmann & Michael Stops, 2019. "Job matching in connected regional and occupational labour markets," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(8), pages 1085-1098, August.
    15. Khalil, Umair, 2017. "Do more guns lead to more crime? Understanding the role of illegal firearms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 342-361.
    16. Antonio Cabrales & Rosemarie Nagel & Roc Armenter, 2007. "Equilibrium selection through incomplete information in coordination games: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 221-234, September.
    17. Bruche, Max & Segura, Anatoli, 2017. "Debt maturity and the liquidity of secondary debt markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(3), pages 599-613.
    18. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Ricardo Lagos, 2007. "A Model of Job and Worker Flows," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 770-819, October.
    19. Zvi Eckstein & Ofer Setty & David Weiss, 2019. "Financial Risk And Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 475-516, May.
    20. Lau, Sau-Him Paul, 2001. "Aggregate Pattern of Time-dependent Adjustment Rules, II: Strategic Complementarity and Endogenous Nonsynchronization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 199-231, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:11737. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.