Putting a price on drugs
An economic sociological study of price formation in illegal drug markets
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9680129 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kim Moeller (Department of Criminology Malmö University—Sweden, corresponding author), Sandberg (0000-0002-1639-6164, University of Oslo), Sveinung Sandberg (Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law Oslo University—Norway) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 289-313 |
| Publication date | 2019-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Criminology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-1384 • E-ISSN: 1745-9125 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1745-9125.12202 |
| OpenAlex | W2914288123 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 26 |
| References cited | 76 |
Prices in illegal drug markets are difficult to predict. Based on qualitative interviews with 68 incarcerated drug dealers in Norway, we explore dealers’ perspectives on fair prices and the processes that influence their pricing decisions. Synthesized through economic sociology, we draw on perspectives from traditions as different as behavioral economics and cultural analysis to demonstrate how participants in illicit drug distribution base their pricing decisions on institutional context, social networks, and drug market cultures. We find that dealers take institutional constraints into consideration and search for niches with high earnings and low risks. The use of transactions embedded in social networks promotes a trusting form of governance, which enables strategic network management and expedient distribution but also uncompetitive pricing. Finally, dealers’ pricing decisions are embedded in three different cultures narratives: business, friendship, and street cultural stories, with widely varying implications for prices. Our findings demonstrate how an economic sociology of illicit drug distribution can extend insights from behavioral economics and cultural studies into a coherent criminology of illegal drug markets
Context (archaeology · Distribution (mathematics · Earnings · Economic sociology · Economics · Embeddedness · Social science · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Finance
Understanding the illegal drug supply chain structure
Ethnic disparities in serious drug offending a descriptive study of Danish registry data
Managing competition in hybrid drug markets
Price of Nitazenes for Sale on Cryptomarkets and Surface Web Shops
Illicit drug prices and quantity discounts
Agency in the fentanyl era
What's in Stock? Drug drought anticipation during Covid-19 among people who use drugs and service providers
Exploring the Perceived Risks and Benefits of Heroin Use among Young People (18–24 Years) in Mauritius
Governance and trade
Uncertainty and risk
The Risk Creates the Reward
Drug dealers gone digital
A detailed study of a prominent dark web fentanyl trafficking organization
Product illegality and its structural consequences
Synthetic Opioid Trafficking Networks
Hybrid Governance in Online Drug Distribution
Do Online Illicit Drug Market Exchanges Afford Rationality
The ties that bribe
Selling Drugs on Darkweb Cryptomarkets
Trust intermediary in a cryptomarket for illegal drugs
Marketness and Governance
Shining a Light on the Shadows
A digital-physical continuum of illegal drug markets
Network embeddedness in illegal online markets
Inconvenient friendship
The Asymmetry of Embeddedness
Principles of Economic Sociology
Economic Sociology and Embeddedness
The Transactions Demand for Cash
A model of price adjustment
An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang's Finances
Narrative Economics
The drugtakers
A theory of social custom, of which unemployment may be one consequence
The Social Construction of Value
The Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Criminology
Principles of economic sociology
Status Signals
Between Hierarchies and Markets
Inside Criminal Networks
The Sociology of Economic Life
Interviews – Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing
Economic Action and Social Structure
Economy and Society
Subcultural evolution and illicit drug use
Drug dealers’ rational choices on which customers to rip-off
Beyond neoclassical economics
King Pin? A Case Study of a Middle Market Drug Broker
Offender Decision-Making in Criminology
Street talk and Bourdieusian criminology
Risks and Prices
How Drug Enforcement Affects Drug Prices
Economists’ Contribution to the Study of Crime and the Criminal Justice System
In Search of Respect
Disorganized Crime
Robbing Drug Dealers
Code of the Street
The organizational structure of international drug smuggling
Crime and Punishment
The Market for Illegal Goods
The Funny Side of Drug Dealing
Black Drug Dealers In A White Welfare State
The Importance of Culture for Cannabis Markets
Club Cultures
The Division of Labour in Society
Violent Stories
The Relevance of Peace to Studies of Drug Market Violence
The Social Organization of Conspiracy
Culture in Action
Holding Your Square
Where do prices come from? Sociological approaches to price formation
From uncertainty toward risk
Embeddedness in the Making of Financial Capital
Embeddedness and Price Formation in the Corporate Law Market
In the shadow
The Paradoxical Impact of Criminal Sanctions
We Weren't Like No Regular Dope Fiends
Economy and Society
The Sociology of Markets
Murder by Structure
The Economics of Organization
The Categorical Imperative
The elusive market
| Unique citing works | 26 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,33 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 26 |