Suchergebnisse

Drug prohibition and developing countries : uncertain benefits, certain costs / Philip Keefer, Norman Loayza, and Rodrigo R. Soares -- The historical foundations of the narcotic drug control regime / Julia Buxton -- Can production and trafficking of illicit drugs be reduced or only shifted? / Peter Reuter -- Evaluating Plan Colombia / Daniel Mejía -- Evo, Pablo, Tony, Diego, and Sonny : general equilibrium analysis of the market for illegal drugs / Rómulo A. Chumacero -- Competitive advantages in the production and trafficking of coca-cocaine and opium-heroin in Afghanistan and the Andean countries / Francisco E. Thoumi -- Cocaine production and trafficking : what do we know? / Daniel Mejía and Carlos Esteban Posada -- Responding to the challenge of Afghanistan's opium economy : development lessons and policy implications / William A. Byrd

The drug policies of wealthy consuming countries emphasize criminalization, interdiction, and eradication. Such extreme responses to social challenges risk unintended, costly consequences. The evidence presented in this volume is that these consequences are high in the case of current drug policies, particularly for poor transit and producer countries. These costs include the deaths of thousands in the conflict between drug cartels and security forces, political instability, and the infiltration of criminal elements into governments, on the one hand; and increased narcotics use in countries that would not otherwise have been targeted by drug suppliers. Despite such costs, extreme policies could be worthwhile if their benefits were significantly higher than those of more moderate, less costly policies. The authors review the evidence on the benefits of current policies and find that they are clouded in uncertainty: eradication appears to have no permanent effect on supply; the evidence on criminalization does not exclude either the possibility that its effects on drug consumption are low, or that they are high. Uncertainty over benefits and the high costs of current policies relative to alternatives justifies greater emphasis on lower cost policies and more conscientious and better-funded efforts to assess the benefits of all policies.

The Schumpeterian process of "creative destruction" is an essential ingredient of a dynamic economy. In many countries around the world, however, this process is weakened by pervasive regulation of product and factor markets. This book documents the regulatory obstacles faced by firms, particularly in developing countries, and assesses their implications for firm renewal and macroeconomic performance.Combining a variety of methodological approaches -- analytical and empirical, micro and macroeconomic, single- and cross-country --, the book provides evidence that streamlining the regulatory framework would have a significant social pay-off, particularly in developing countries that are also burdened by weak governance. The book's chapters trace out analytically and empirically the links between microeconomic policies and distortions, on the one hand, and aggregate performance in terms of productivity, growth and volatility, on the other.The volume adds to a novel but increasingly influential literature that seeks to understand macroeconomic phenomena from a microeconomic perspective, and derive the relevant lessons for development policy. Such literature is still fairly scarce in the case of industrial countries, and virtually in its infancy for developing countries.

Economic consequences of terrorism in developed and developing countries : an overview / Todd Sandler and Walter Enders -- The costs of responding to the terrorist threats : the U.S. case / Gregory F. Treverton [and others] -- From (no) butter to guns? : understanding the economic role in transnational terrorism / S. Brock Blomberg and Gregory D. Hess -- The Lexus and the olive branch : globalization, democratization, and terrorism / S. Brock Blomberg and Gregory D. Hess -- Kto kogo? : a cross-country study of the origins and targets of terrorism / Alan B. Krueger and David D. Laitin -- Terrorism and civil war / Nicholas Sambanis -- The political, economic, and organizational sources of terrorism / David D. Laitin and Jacob Shapiro -- Economics and terrorism : what we know, what we should know, and the data we need / Fernanda Llussá and José Tavares.