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Unpublished Paper
On the Effects of Drug Policy
Economics Department Working Paper Series (1997)
  • Gunnar Thorlund Jepsen
  • Peter Skott, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
Abstract
This paper presents a simple analytical model of the market for hard drugs. The key assumptions are (i) a distinction between new users and existing addicts, (ii) imperfect competition, (iii) selective marketing efforts towards potential users, and (iv) the existence of policy effects on consumer loyalty as well as on the static price elasticity of demand facing individual suppliers at any given moment. It is shown that the long-run effects of stricter enforcement may be an increase in both the number of addicts and total consumption.
Keywords
  • drugs,
  • enforcemnet strategy,
  • addiction,
  • consumer loyalty,
  • marketing of illicit drugs,
  • transaction costs
Disciplines
Publication Date
1997
Citation Information
Gunnar Thorlund Jepsen and Peter Skott. "On the Effects of Drug Policy" Economics Department Working Paper Series (1997)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/peter_skott/42/