MARC Record from Scriblio

LEADER: 02440cam 22003257a 4500
001 2005615264
003 DLC
005 20050106124406.0
007 cr |||||||||||
008 050106s2004 mau sb 000 0 eng
010 $a 2005615264
040 $aDLC$cDLC
050 00 $aHB1
100 1 $aBecker, Gary Stanley,$d1930-
245 14 $aThe economic theory of illegal goods$h[electronic resource] :$bthe case of drugs /$cGary S. Becker, Kevin M. Murphy, Michael Grossman.
260 $aCambridge, MA :$bNational Bureau of Economic Research,$cc2004
490 1 $aNBER working paper series ;$vworking paper 10976
538 $aSystem requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
538 $aMode of access: World Wide Web.
500 $aTitle from PDF file as viewed on 1/6/2005.
530 $aAlso available in print.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references.
520 3 $a"This paper concentrates on both the positive and normative effects of punishments that enforce laws to make production and consumption of particular goods illegal, with illegal drugs as the main example. Optimal public expenditures on apprehension and conviction of illegal suppliers obviously depend on the extent of the difference between the social and private value of consumption of illegal goods, but they also depend crucially on the elasticity of demand for these goods. In particular, when demand is inelastic, it does not pay to enforce any prohibition unless the social value is negative and not merely less than the private value. We also compare outputs and prices when a good is legal and taxed with outputs and prices when the good is illegal. We show that a monetary tax on a legal good could cause a greater reduction in output and increase in price than would optimal enforcement, even recognizing that producers may want to go underground to try to avoid a monetary tax. This means that fighting a war on drugs by legalizing drug use and taxing consumption may be more effective than continuing to prohibit the legal use of drugs"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
650 0 $aDrug traffic$xEconomic aspects.
650 0 $aDrug legalization.
700 1 $aMurphy, Kevin M.
700 1 $aGrossman, Michael.
710 2 $aNational Bureau of Economic Research.
830 0 $aWorking paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;$vworking paper no. 10976.
856 40 $uhttp://papers.nber.org/papers/w10976