Does destroying ivory stockpiles lead to a decline or an increase in the illegal ivory trade? Have the two highly regulated sales of ivory – the first to Japan in 2000 and the second to Japan and China in 2008 – had an impact on the illegal ivory trade? In this post I look at […]
Don’t be scared of complexity – it can provide simple answers!
A number of times, when I have been talking with people about their data, I have been told “I don’t want you to do anything complicated – I just want you to do something simple so that I can have a result, or story, that everyone can understand”. This is often said when people have […]
Does an increase in the number of seizures of illegal goods tell us whether illicit trade is increasing or decreasing?
What can we learn about trends in trade of an illicit good from looking at how the number of seizures of an illegal good changes over time? Let us suppose we have the following information. Suppose the law enforcement agencies within a country report seizing 50 shipments of illegal goods* in time period A, 75 […]
