Over millennia, mankind has used hard cash in various forms ranging from shells to gold coins and paper. More recently, cash has become unpopular in political circles, as it effectively restricts states’ power to tax (explicitly or via negative interest rates) or to survey and potentially...

Illicit financial flows (IFFs) in West Africa have long contributed to the region’s instability, partly due to their links to regional terrorist organisations such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). AQIM has directly and indirectly participated in and perpetuated illicit financial...

This paper explores the flow of illicit narcotics transiting West Africa. It is divided into four sections, providing an overview of the nature and scope of the illicit narcotic economy, the networks and actors involved and its development impacts, including its resulting illicit financial...

Illicit trade in goods that displace normally legal goods is an extensive global problem, which carries considerable development risks and losses for developing countries. Focusing on pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and consumer goods (which in itself consists of a broad range of goods), this...

The goal of this paper is to analyze the behavior of digital music consumers on the Internet. Using clickstream data on a panel of more than 16,000 European consumers, we estimate the effects of illegal downloading and legal streaming on the legal purchases of digital music. Our results suggest...

Taking down copyright-infringing websites is a way to reduce consumption of pirated media content and increase licensed consumption. We analyze the consequences of the shutdown of the most popular German video streaming website - kino.to - in June 2011. Using individual-level clickstream data,...

Streaming music services have exploded in popularity in the past few years, variously raising optimism and concern about their impacts on recorded music revenue. On the one hand, streaming services allow sellers to engage in bundling with the promise of increasing revenues, profits, and consumer...

Interactive music streaming services have grown tremendously in recent years, raising questions about their effects on digital music sales and piracy. While often overlooked in practice, theoretical considerations suggest that these effects may differ according to the streaming services'...

Counterfeiting activities target companies in various sectors, including digital technology companies, defined as companies that produce and/or commercialize at least one physical product that incorporates a digital technology, excluding the merchandising related to the company brands....

Digitization has vastly increased the amount of new music produced and, because of streaming, has raised the number of songs available directly to consumers. While enhanced availability has levelled the playing field between already-prominent and new artists, creators may now be highly dependent...