Tag: Illegal smuggling
Between ‘moral economy’ and ‘social banditry’: harvest theft in a peasant community
This article studies avocado theft in southern Turkey’s peasant communities, where a significant avocado market formed between 2010 and 2020. In the context of the country’s neoliberalized agricultural regime, avocado as a ‘high-value food’ became a lucrative alternative for farmers struggling with decreasing profits from traditional crops. This new market economically benefited larger farmers, while smallholders, hampered by market liberalization policies of the preceding decade, were
Is smuggling welfare-improving? Evidence from avocados in Costa Rica
Does smuggling improve economic welfare? This paper provides a theoretical model of illegal trade and determines the impact of smuggling on economic welfare. We focus on Costa Rica’s recent prohibition of avocados imported from Mexico. Using unique data on trade, production, and the price of Costa Rican and Mexican avocados, we find that the quantity of avocados smuggled into Costa Rica on an annual basis ranges from 4,668 to 10,232 metric tons, representing up to four times the quantity of locally