The Price Elasticity of African Elephant Poaching

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 finding implies for elephant conservation policies.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Do, Quy-Toan, Levchenko, Andrei A., Ma, Lin, Blanc, Julian, Dublin, Holly, Milliken, Tom
Format: Working Paper biblioteca
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2018-02
Subjects:ELEPHANTS, IVORY PRICE, POACHING, PRICE ELASTICITY, STORAGE, CONSERVATION,
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/358291518460602605/The-price-elasticity-of-African-elephant-poaching
https://hdl.handle.net/10986/29369
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spelling dig-okr-10986293692024-12-18T05:44:00Z The Price Elasticity of African Elephant Poaching Do, Quy-Toan Levchenko, Andrei A. Ma, Lin Blanc, Julian Dublin, Holly Milliken, Tom ELEPHANTS IVORY PRICE POACHING PRICE ELASTICITY STORAGE CONSERVATION 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 finding implies for elephant conservation policies. 2018-02-16T21:14:14Z 2018-02-16T21:14:14Z 2018-02 Working Paper Document de travail Documento de trabajo http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/358291518460602605/The-price-elasticity-of-African-elephant-poaching https://hdl.handle.net/10986/29369 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8335 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank application/pdf World Bank, Washington, DC
institution Banco Mundial
collection DSpace
country Estados Unidos
countrycode US
component Bibliográfico
access En linea
databasecode dig-okr
tag biblioteca
region America del Norte
libraryname Biblioteca del Banco Mundial
language English
topic ELEPHANTS
IVORY PRICE
POACHING
PRICE ELASTICITY
STORAGE
CONSERVATION
ELEPHANTS
IVORY PRICE
POACHING
PRICE ELASTICITY
STORAGE
CONSERVATION
spellingShingle ELEPHANTS
IVORY PRICE
POACHING
PRICE ELASTICITY
STORAGE
CONSERVATION
ELEPHANTS
IVORY PRICE
POACHING
PRICE ELASTICITY
STORAGE
CONSERVATION
Do, Quy-Toan
Levchenko, Andrei A.
Ma, Lin
Blanc, Julian
Dublin, Holly
Milliken, Tom
The Price Elasticity of African Elephant Poaching
description 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 finding implies for elephant conservation policies.
format Working Paper
topic_facet ELEPHANTS
IVORY PRICE
POACHING
PRICE ELASTICITY
STORAGE
CONSERVATION
author Do, Quy-Toan
Levchenko, Andrei A.
Ma, Lin
Blanc, Julian
Dublin, Holly
Milliken, Tom
author_facet Do, Quy-Toan
Levchenko, Andrei A.
Ma, Lin
Blanc, Julian
Dublin, Holly
Milliken, Tom
author_sort Do, Quy-Toan
title The Price Elasticity of African Elephant Poaching
title_short The Price Elasticity of African Elephant Poaching
title_full The Price Elasticity of African Elephant Poaching
title_fullStr The Price Elasticity of African Elephant Poaching
title_full_unstemmed The Price Elasticity of African Elephant Poaching
title_sort price elasticity of african elephant poaching
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2018-02
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/358291518460602605/The-price-elasticity-of-African-elephant-poaching
https://hdl.handle.net/10986/29369
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