Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
10-2021
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to provide an estimate of the elasticity of elephant poaching with respect to prices. Ivory being a storable commodity subjects its price to Hotelling’s no-arbitrage condition, hence allowing identification of the supply curve. The price of gold, one of many commodities used as stores of value, is thus used as an instrument for ivory prices. The supply of illegal ivory is found to be price inelastic with an elasticity of 0.4, with changes in consumer prices passing-through to prices faced by producers at a rate close to unity. Estimations based on a number of alternative estimation approaches all confirm the conclusion that supply is inelastic. The paper ends with a brief discussion on what such a finding implies for elephant conservation policies.
Keywords
Elephants, poaching, price elasticity, storage, conservation
Discipline
African Studies | Behavioral Economics
Research Areas
Applied Microeconomics
Publication
World Bank Economic Review
Volume
35
Issue
3
First Page
545
Last Page
562
ISSN
0258-6770
Identifier
10.1093/wber/lhaa008
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Citation
DO, Quy-Toan; LEVCHENKO, Andrei A.; MA, Lin; BLANC, Julian; DUBLIN, Holly; and MILLIKEN, Tom.
The price elasticity of African elephant poaching. (2021). World Bank Economic Review. 35, (3), 545-562.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/2505
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhaa008