We use a unique data set to investigate the economic consequences of banning the harvest and trade of Brazilian mahogany. Because we find strong evidence that mahogany is smuggled out of Brazil as "other tropical species" through formal export mechanisms, we are able to construct a time series...

Some scholars suggest that global timber markets, especially those involving high value species, are a leading cause of tropical deforestation. Despite limited empirical evidence, this hypothesis rests on the assumption that global timber markets respond to a common equilibrating mechanism that...