Illicit trade and infectious diseases

Cosimo Beverelli and Rohit Ticku

No ERSD-2020-13, WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division

Abstract: We collect a novel dataset that covers about 130 countries and the six four-digit live animal categories in the Harmonized System (HS) over a sixteen-year period, to study the link between illicit trade in live animals and threat to animal health from infectious diseases. Our results imply that a one percent increase in illicit imports in an HS four-digit live animal category is associated with a 0.3 to 0.4 percent rise in infections amongst related species in the importing country. We explore the mechanisms and find that mis-classifying or under-pricing an imported species are the channels through which illicit trade impacts animal health.

Keywords: illicit trade; missing imports; disease; live animals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F18 I18 K42 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env, nep-int and nep-law
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wtowps:ersd202013

DOI: 10.30875/1c1fab07-en

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