IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v107y2014icp259-265.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The raw and the carved: Shipping costs and ivory smuggling

Author

Listed:
  • Moyle, Brendan

Abstract

The recent and rapid increase in elephant poaching has caused international alarm. A fixed-effects panel-data regression model was employed to identify possible causes of this upsurge. Ivory seizures were categorised as worked or raw. These categories were also divided into four weight classes ranging from under 10kg to over 1000kg. With Africa being the source of ivory and much of the poached ivory destined for Asia it was hypothesised that smugglers would respond to shipping costs. The results showed that shipping costs, especially for large shipments, were correlated to smuggling levels. Other factors include global interest rates, which motivate stockpiling by criminal organisations. Stability in Africa as measured by refugee numbers correlates to raw ivory seizures. The data describes a scenario where three forces converged to escalate poaching in the late 2000s. Raw ivory was being made increasingly available at a time from Central African range states, when criminal organisations desired larger stockpiles of tusks. The sharp decline in shopping costs gave them the means to take advantage of this.

Suggested Citation

  • Moyle, Brendan, 2014. "The raw and the carved: Shipping costs and ivory smuggling," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 259-265.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:107:y:2014:i:c:p:259-265
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.09.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914002717
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.09.001?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brendan Moyle, 2009. "The black market in China for tiger products," Global Crime, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1-2), pages 124-143, February.
    2. Ferrier, Peyton, 2008. "Illicit Agricultural Trade," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(2), pages 273-287, October.
    3. Dick, Andrew R., 1995. "When does organized crime pay? A transaction cost analysis," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 25-45, January.
    4. Harris, Richard D. F. & Tzavalis, Elias, 1999. "Inference for unit roots in dynamic panels where the time dimension is fixed," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 201-226, August.
    5. Ferrier, Peyton Michael, 2008. "Illicit Agricultural Trade," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 37(2), pages 1-15.
    6. Charles Morcom & Michael Kremer, 2000. "Elephants," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 212-234, March.
      • Michael Kremer & Charles Morcom, 1996. "Elephants," NBER Working Papers 5674, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Kremer, M. & Morcom, C., 1996. "Elephants," Working papers 96-17, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    7. Lin, Faqin & Sim, Nicholas C.S., 2013. "Trade, income and the Baltic Dry Index," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-18.
    8. Fiona M Underwood & Robert W Burn & Tom Milliken, 2013. "Dissecting the Illegal Ivory Trade: An Analysis of Ivory Seizures Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-12, October.
    9. Erdogan, Oral & Tata, Kenan & Karahasan, B. Can & Sengoz, M. Hakan, 2013. "Dynamics of the co-movement between stock and maritime markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 282-290.
    10. Erwin H. Bulte & Richard D. Horan & Jason F. Shogren, 2003. "Elephants: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1437-1445, September.
    11. Charles F. Mason & Erwin H. Bulte & Richard D. Horan, 2012. "Banking on extinction: endangered species and speculation," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(1), pages 180-192, Spring.
    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. Brennan, Andrew John & Kalsi, Jaslin Kaur, 2015. "Elephant poaching & ivory trafficking problems in Sub-Saharan Africa: An application of O'Hara's principles of political economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 312-337.
    2. Harvey, Ross & Alden, Chris & Wu, Yu-Shan, 2017. "Speculating a Fire Sale: Options for Chinese Authorities in Implementing a Domestic Ivory Trade Ban," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 22-31.

    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. Ferrier, Peyton Michael, 2009. "The Economics of Agricultural and Wildlife Smuggling," Economic Research Report 55951, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Pavleska, Marija & Kerr, William A., 2020. "Importer's risk, smuggling and the role of incentives in the management of animal diseases," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    3. Harvey, Ross & Alden, Chris & Wu, Yu-Shan, 2017. "Speculating a Fire Sale: Options for Chinese Authorities in Implementing a Domestic Ivory Trade Ban," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 22-31.
    4. Michael Kremer & Charles Morcom, 2003. "Elephants: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1446-1448, September.
    5. Colin Rowat & Jayasri Dutta, 2007. "The Commons with Capital Markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 31(2), pages 225-254, May.
    6. Gilberto González-Parra & Benito Chen-Charpentier & Abraham J. Arenas & Miguel Díaz-Rodríguez, 2022. "Mathematical Modeling of Physical Capital Diffusion Using a Spatial Solow Model: Application to Smuggling in Venezuela," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-16, July.
    7. Colin Rowat & Jayasri Dutta, 2004. "The road to extinction: commons with capital markets," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 145, Econometric Society.
    8. Conrad, Jon M. & Lopes, Adrian A., 2017. "Poaching and the dynamics of a protected species," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 55-67.
    9. Chen, Frederick, 2017. "The Economics of Synthetic Rhino Horns," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 180-189.
    10. Jayasri Dutta & Colin Rowat, 2004. "The Road to Extinction: Commons with Capital Markets," GE, Growth, Math methods 0412001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Robert Innes & George Frisvold, 2009. "The Economics of Endangered Species," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 485-512, September.
    12. Ferrier, Peyton, 2010. "Irradiation as a quarantine treatment," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 548-555, December.
    13. Yimiao Gu & Zhenxi Chen & Qingyang Gu, 2022. "Determinants and international influences of the Chinese freight market," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(5), pages 2601-2618, May.
    14. Peyton Michael Ferrier, 2021. "Detecting origin fraud with trade data: the case of U.S. honey imports," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 65(1), pages 222-245, January.
    15. Ferrier, Peyton Michael, 2020. "Detecting origin fraud with trade data: the case of U.S. honey imports," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 65(01), January.
    16. Chen, Frederick & ’t Sas-Rolfes, Michael, 2021. "Theoretical analysis of a simple permit system for selling synthetic wildlife goods," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    17. Abakah, Emmanuel Joel Aikins & Abdullah, Mohammad & Dankwah, Boakye & Lee, Chi-Chuan, 2024. "Asymmetric dynamics between the Baltic Dry Index and financial markets during major global economic events," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    18. Gilberto Gonz'alez-Parra & Benito Chen-Charpentier & Abraham J. Arenas & Miguel Diaz-Rodriguez, 2015. "Mathematical modeling of physical capital using the spatial Solow model," Papers 1504.04388, arXiv.org.
    19. Bruinshoofd Allard & Kool Clemens, 2002. "The Determinants of Corporate Liquidity in the Netherlands," Research Memorandum 014, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    20. Kolawole Ogundari & Shoichi Ito & Victor O Okoruwa, 2016. "Estimating nutrition-income elasticities in sub-Saharan Africa: implications on health," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(1), pages 59-69, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CITES; Elephant; Ivory; Poaching; Smuggling; Wildlife economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    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:eee:ecolec:v:107:y:2014:i:c:p:259-265. 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/ecolecon .

    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.