Evaluating Economic Warfare: Lessons from Efforts to Suppress the Afghan Opium Trade

Clemens, Jeffrey (2013): Evaluating Economic Warfare: Lessons from Efforts to Suppress the Afghan Opium Trade.

Abstract

In the mid-2000s, U.S. anti-opium policy intensified with a goal of reducing the resources available to Afghan insurgents. To achieve this objective, I show that opium suppression efforts must accurately distinguish between insurgent and non-insurgent suppliers. The required level of accuracy will be particularly high if demand for opium is inelastic and if the insurgents’ initial market share is large. Empirically, I show that demand for Afghan opium is relatively inelastic, that the market share of Taliban-heavy areas is large, and that enforcement has primarily impacted non-Taliban territory. Consequently, anti-opium efforts have significantly increased the drug-trade resources flowing to the Taliban.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: National Security, Drug Control Policy, Policy Evaluation, Economics of Crime, Economics of Insurgency
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D78 - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation; H - Public Economics > H0 - General > H00 - General; H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H50 - General; H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H56 - National Security and War

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