Trade Openness and the Illegal Ivory Trade

This paper examines how the illegal ivory trade|including poaching, smuggling, and stockpiling|responds to increases in trade openness. When a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement promotes legal trade between an ivory-exporting country and the United States, the impact on illegal ivory is unclear. Predictions about poaching activ- ity and smuggling diverge, and the option to stockpile further complicates this scenario. A dierence-in-dierences estimation using a panel regression with synthetic controls and unique tests to analyze shifting markets and stockpiling behavior suggest that 1) trade openness motivates increased poaching, 2) this increased supply of ivory is, at least in part, stockpiled, while 3) seizures of ivory at the US border do not change. Secondary results show that poverty does stimulate poaching and that increases in legal trade mask a growing illegal trade.