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Abstract
The textbook competitive model of drug markets predicts that greater law enforcement leads to higher black market prices, but also to the unintended consequences of greater revenue and violence. These predictions are not in accord with the paradoxical outcomes evinced by recent history in some drug markets, where enforcement rose even as prices fell. We show that predictions of the textbook model are not unequivocal, and that when bandwagon effects among scofflaws are introduced, the simple predictions are more likely to be reversed. We next show that even simple models of noncompetitive black markets can elicit paradoxical outcomes. Therefore, we argue that instead of searching for assumptions that lead to paradoxical outcomes, which is the direction the literature has taken, it is better for policy analysis to choose appropriate assumptions for the textbook model. We finish with performing such an analysis for the case of banning menthol cigarettes. Under the most plausible assumptions enforcement will indeed spur violence, although the legal availability of electronic cigarettes may mitigate or reverse this conclusion.

In recent decades all sorts of illicit medicines have been increasingly traded world-wide: from antibiotics to weight loss drugs, and antimalarial tablets to steroids. The illicit medicines market is generally associated with considerable health risks for its users, as well as with high revenues and a perceived growing degree of criminal organization. It is therefore important to gain extensive criminological insights into this global market. This book provides in-depth and empirically-grounded theoretical insights into the online and offline trade in illicit pharmaceuticals, with particular reference to lifestyle pharmaceuticals. Trade in the Netherlands and manufacturing in China are taken as extended case studies. The author primarily focuses on the activities, dynamics and structure of the illicit market in the Netherlands, and on the production and transnational distribution of illicit medicines in and from China. In order to understand how actors operate, compete and develop trust relations, as well as how the illicit market is structured, this study is built on a mixed-method approach of both qualitative and quantitative data. By means of interviews with actors directly involved in the trade, analysis of court cases, a survey study and an online analysis, this book provides thorough and rich insights into the actors, dynamics and social organization of the flourishing illicit medicines market

AbstractThis article explores the ambiguous role of coastal smuggling during the first decade and a half of Communist rule (1949–65). Fearing that the illicit flow of commodities siphoned critical revenues and undermined foreign policy, Communist China repurposed and expanded Nationalist China's war on smuggling while employing novel tactics of mobilization. Yet smuggling was not just a threat; it was also a lifeline that alleviated widespread material shortages and supplied the everyday needs of individuals and firms during the tumultuous transition to central planning. Businesses from 'underground factories' to state-owned enterprises relied on black markets to meet ambitious production targets and circumvent bottlenecks in official supply channels. Smuggling was thus more than just 'corruption' practised by officials—it was also a 'creative accommodation' employed by broad swaths of social actors coping with the enormous changes. This article argues that the nascent command economy and the vibrant underground economy existed symbiotically rather than antagonistically. Exploration into this complex relationship reveals many cross-border connections between Communist China and the capitalist world that both complemented and undermined domestic state consolidation.

Although illicit exchange has also been an organized, silent, and ever-present response to harsh economic crisis, only protest and social movements have captured scholars' attention. In order to fill this void, this paper analyzes the emergence of illegal markets under situations of social breakdown. I claim that an illicit market emerging under socio-economic crisis conditions might be understood as the result of a constant valuation process and the intervention of what Herbert Mead called "generalized others." In the new arena of exchange, individuals are able to anticipate the reactions of others, inhibit undesirable impulses, and guide their conduct accordingly by visualizing their own line of action from a generalized standpoint. This approach to illicit markets is based on a critical reading of two other approaches: the anomie theory and the field of organized-crime studies. Both perspectives, according to the argument, operate with a model of action characterized by fixed ends and means, a priori assumptions that hinder the ability to perceive the gradual and transforming dynamics of a crisis situation. The paper also offers empirical evidence on the process of the emergence of an illicit market under a crisis situation. By referring to La Salada market, an arena of exchange which emerged during the 1990s in Argentina, I describe a process characterized by an intensification of communicative activities, the adjustment of mutual expectations, the search for definitions that legitimate expectations, and role-taking in the market.

Abstract
Discourses around illicit markets for irregular migration focus on criminality and global dimensions threatening border security and the sovereignty of the state. Organised crime has generally been understood to be committed by crime syndicates outside or parallel to the dominant order and formal economy. In Malaysia and Indonesia, however, the state (or parts thereof) is heavily implicated in such crime and essential for the success of unsanctioned trans-border movements. The participation of state officials could be analysed as a convergence of extralegal income generation and symbolic law enforcement. This article presents case studies from Malaysia and Indonesia that could only have taken place because security officials facilitated them. It challenges the orthodoxy of a state versus criminal network opposition and seeks to explain the circumstances under which legal prosecution occurs. The symbolic punishment of low-ranking officials reinforces networks of control, power hierarchies and cooperation of the state in illicit markets.