<p><i>Insurgents, drug lords and anti-drug supply policies in the Andes</i>. The United States has spent enormous resources on supply policies to decrease illegal drug production in the Andes and availability in the U.S. market. However, evidence suggests increased drug production and availability over time. Moreover, insurgent activities in the region have also increased. We present an explanation for these unexpected trends by analyzing an illicit drug market where drug lords and insurgents interact. The analysis suggests that supply policies increase drug production and insurgent activity while having no effect on drug availability and prices.</p><p><i>Counter-intuitive effects of domestic law enforcement policies in the United States.</i> In spite of the increase in domestic law enforcement policies in the U.S., illegal drug distribution activities have followed a non-monotonic trend and cocaine and heroin prices have been dropping or have remained stable over time. This paper provides an explanation for these counter-intuitive effects. We model how drug lords respond to this type of policy and predict distribution activities, prices and drug consumption in the United States.</p><p><i>Spillover effects of domestic law enforcement policies. </i>Independent efforts by local and state governments in the United States to combat illegal drug markets are in contrast with a global market where drugs are sold and distributed simultaneously in different locations. We study the effect that domestic law enforcement policies may have on this global context. The external effects of these policies induce overspending by governments, but a low level of global drug consumption. Competition effects are also studied.</p><p><i>Drive-by competition? Violence in the drug market. </i>Today, the retail distribution of most illegal drugs is mainly in the hands of street gangs that also account for most of the drug related violence in many states and cities in the United States. Interestingly, the level of violence in drug markets appears to vary with the type of drug. Based on the notion that gangs use violence strategically to compete for customers we find that both the effectiveness of violence in shifting demand and the cost of switching supplier by users affect the level of violence in the market. Indirect effects of anti-drug policies are discussed.</p>

This thesis is comprised of three essays. These essays model facets of illicit markets using economic theories of reputation and go on to develop new theories of reputation. In chapter 1, we start by defining illicit markets. We build a model of trade in an illicit market where honesty is enforced through reputation. We then show how criminals' heterogeneity in their ability to avoid detection can have interesting consequences. In particular, such heterogeneity can explain why illicit market participants might sometimes adopt surprisingly blatant trading strategies. Heterogeneity among criminals in terms of how they are affected by enforcement can give rise to counter-intuitive market reactions to changes in the level of enforcement. Chapter 2 considers the market for stolen payment data such as credit card numbers. The central observation is that stealing financial data and using it for personal gain are two very different skills. An online market exists through which those who steal data can sell it to those who can ``cash in''. The low prices in these markets are not evidence of a failure of the reputational system, but of large outside options on one side of the market. Finally chapter 3 considers reputation more generally. We find folk theorem and incomplete information models place too much faith in the knowledge and rationality of short-lived players. We propose instead a new model with more realistic assumptions about the information available to short-lived players and their ability to use it. This model generates natural cycles in the reputation of the rational long-lived player.

Insurgents, drug lords and anti-drug supply policies in the Andes. The United States has spent enormous resources on supply policies to decrease illegal drug production in the Andes and availability in the U.S. market. However, evidence suggests increased drug production and availability over time. Moreover, insurgent activities in the region have also increased. We present an explanation for these unexpected trends by analyzing an illicit drug market where drug lords and insurgents interact. The analysis suggests that supply policies increase drug production and insurgent activity while having no effect on drug availability and prices. Counter-intuitive effects of domestic law enforcement policies in the United States. In spite of the increase in domestic law enforcement policies in the U.S., illegal drug distribution activities have followed a non-monotonic trend and cocaine and heroin prices have been dropping or have remained stable over time. This paper provides an explanation for these counter-intuitive effects. We model how drug lords respond to this type of policy and predict distribution activities, prices and drug consumption in the United States. Spillover effects of domestic law enforcement policies. Independent efforts by local and state governments in the United States to combat illegal drug markets are in contrast with a global market where drugs are sold and distributed simultaneously in different locations. We study the effect that domestic law enforcement policies may have on this global context. The external effects of these policies induce overspending by governments, but a low level of global drug consumption. Competition effects are also studied. Drive-by competition? Violence in the drug market. Today, the retail distribution of most illegal drugs is mainly in the hands of street gangs that also account for most of the drug related violence in many states and cities in the United States. Interestingly, the level of violence in drug markets appears to vary with the type of drug. Based on the notion that gangs use violence strategically to compete for customers we find that both the effectiveness of violence in shifting demand and the cost of switching supplier by users affect the level of violence in the market. Indirect effects of anti-drug policies are discussed.

The purpose of this research is to identify the forces that impact the intention of employees to misuse the Internet at the workplace, called cyberloafing. Although cyberloafing literature has suggested several antecedents that predict cyberloafing such as job attitudes, organizational characteristics, work stressors, locus of control (Blanchard & Henle, 2008; Henle & Blanchard, 2008; Liberman, Seidman, McKenna, & Buffardi, 2011), this research adopted attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and organizational citizenship behavior to predict the intention to cyberloaf. Additionally, this research adopted organizational justice and the mechanisms of general deterrence theory as moderating variables to better understand the relationship between attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, organizational citizenship behavior, and the intention to cyberloaf. We believe it is essential to investigate the antecedents of cyberloafing to help predict its existence and occurrence. The existing research, which examined employees' abuse of the Internet, remains greatly atheoretical; thus, it supplies limited insights to researchers as to why cyberloafing continues to take place (Lim, 2002). It is important to recognize what motivates employees to engage in cyberloafing for organizations to implement specific polices and intervention programs to limit or deter its occurrence. This is necessary, as employees' abuse of the Internet can negatively affect an organization through decreased profitability, reduced productivity levels, and exposure to a diverse range of legal liabilities (Liberman et al., 2011). The results of the study showed that an employee's attitude and subjective norm can significantly predict his or her intention to engage in cyberloafing. Both of the dimensions of general deterrence theory (punishment severity and certainty) significantly moderated the relationship between attitude, subjective norm, and the intention to cyberloaf. Additionally, punishment severity significantly moderated the relationship between perceived behavioral control and the intention to cyberloaf. From this study, we concluded that cyberloafing is a social phenomenon that needs to be studied further to fully comprehend the organizational contexts, motivational factors, and consequences. Our study should be analyzed as a positive step toward learning the key components that can influence employees' intentions to abuse the Internet in the workplace.

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The complex issue of corruption has attracted much attention over the last 20 years. The problem was analyzed mostly in the context of developing and transition countries, though not only the recent financial crisis showed the severity of corruption also in the world's most developed countries. This thesis analyzes twelve currently available corruption assessments for a cross section of 39 developed countries in the period 2007-2010. The thesis categorizes these assessments into three basic generations and characterizes the weaknesses and limitations of particular methods. The analysis is based on determination of relationship between individual corruption measures and recognizes specific aspects of corruption actually measured by particular indices. With the exception of strictly opinion poll-based corruption indices, the first and the second generation of corruption indices correlate well for a set of developed countries. This indicates that the sector specific indices, e.g. expenditure corruption assessment, are in analyzed countries closely related to the overall political corruption levels. An applied hierarchical cluster analysis gives better picture of otherwise inconsistent developed countries corruption rankings and divides countries into ten homogeneous groups. However, the analysis...

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:27:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 sergio.pdf: 998078 bytes, checksum: b0b30a5fca7c959a029391b52b1da046 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-05-23 / Pontificia Universidade de São Paulo / This work aimed at bringing together two seminal aspects regarding the defense of personal rights (i) the responsability of the mass media and (ii) the adoption of speedy judicial action when illegal behaivor by the media has been verified. / Aplicação da tutela do artigo 461 na defesa dos direitos da personalidade e responsabilidade dos meios de comunicação formas de reparação critérios para concessão da tutela antecipada