An Analysis of Economic Warfare

I develop a framework for assessing economic warfare, which describes efforts to undermine adversaries' sources of income. The ability to target adversarial market participants is a primary determinant of the success of such efforts, as is the elasticity of demand in the relevant market. An app...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe American economic review Vol. 103; no. 3; pp. 523 - 527
Main Author Clemens, Jeffrey
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Nashville American Economic Association 01.05.2013
Subjects
Consumption
Crop economics
Drug trafficking
Economic analysis
Economic impact
Economic resources
Economics
ECONOMICS OF NATIONAL SECURITY
Elasticity of demand
Enforcement
Externality
Extractive industries
Income
Income elasticity of demand
Insurgency
Market demand
Narcotics
Opiates
Opium
Studies
Taliban
War
Warfare
Afghanistan
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Summary:I develop a framework for assessing economic warfare, which describes efforts to undermine adversaries' sources of income. The ability to target adversarial market participants is a primary determinant of the success of such efforts, as is the elasticity of demand in the relevant market. An application of the framework to US efforts to suppress the Afghan opium trade yields pessimistic results. Inelastic demand and poorly targeted enforcement have led these efforts to increase the drug trade resources flowing toward the Taliban. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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ISSN:0002-8282
1944-7981
DOI:10.1257/aer.103.3.523