Retail prices of major drugs like cocaine and heroin have declined dramatically during the last two decades. This price decline has tended to offset the effects of drug policies aimed at reducing drug use in major industrial countries. The main finding of this paper is that the decline in the...

In 2009, Belgium and the Netherlands announced a deal to send approximately 500 Belgian inmates to Dutch prisons, in exchange for an annual payment of £26 million. The arrangement was unprecedented, but justified as beneficial to both nations: Belgium had too many prisoners and not enough...

Governments worldwide are increasingly concerned about the booming CBD (cannabidiol) products. However, little is known about the impact of their liberalization. We study a unique case of unintended liberalization of a CBD-based product (light cannabis) that occurred in Italy in 2017. Using...

We examine how globalization affects trade patterns and welfare when conflict prevails domestically. We do so in a simple model of trade, in which a natural resource like oil is contested by competing groups using real resources ("guns"). Thus, conflict is viewed as ultimately stemming from...

There remains a broad conflict over the direction of future progress in international competition law. This conflict is exemplified by the very different tone and recommendation of expert commentators such as Judge Diane Wood and Eleanor Fox. This conflict is generally portrayed as a dichotomous...

International business disputes rarely go to court, but sometimes they do.By virtue of the internationally accepted principle of party autonomy, business partners involved in cross-border transactions are entitled to select their forum of choice for any dispute which may arise from their...

While protesters took to the streets in the Battle in Seattle demanding greater accountability from international institutions, such as the WTO and the IMF, and the end of an "era of trade negotiations conducted by sheltered elites balancing competing commercial interests behind closed doors,"...

We provide a critical discussion of the concept drug-related crime and review methods for estimating its volume, emphasising the importance of an appropriately defined counterfactual. We then construct new estimates for England and Wales in 2003-6, combining data from the Arrestee Survey and...

Helpman, Melitz and Rubinstein (2008) derive gravity equations to estimate effects of trade barriers on the intensive and extensive margins of trade. They exploit the frequency of zeros in aggregate bilateral trade data to identify effects on the extensive margin and to obtain controls for firm...