Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T21:08:22.681Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

MACROECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE: DIFFUSION, PRODUCTIVITY AND OPTIMAL CONTROL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2006

AMNON LEVY ,
FRANK NERI  and
DIETER GRASS
AMNON LEVY
Affiliation:
City College of New York, City University of New York and University of Wollongong
FRANK NERI
Affiliation:
University of Wollongong
DIETER GRASS
Affiliation:
Vienna University of Technology
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper deals with macroeconomic aspects of widespread substance abuse with a reference to illicit drugs as an example. Substance abuse impedes the productivity of the labor force and reduces economic growth. Workers are either nonusers and therefore fully productive, a number of whom are employed by the government in drug-control activities, or users who are only partially productive. Efficient management of the nation's portfolio of workers involves eradicating drug use when initial user numbers are lower than a critical level, but allows user numbers to rise to, and be accommodated at, a stationary level when initial user numbers exceed a critical level.

Keywords

Substance AbuseLabor ProductivityNational IncomeOptimal Control
Type
ARTICLES
Information
Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 2006 , pp. 145 - 164
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Behrens Doris A., Jonathon P. Caulkins, Gernot Tragler, and Gustav Feichtinger 1997 Controlling U.S. Cocaine Epidemic: Prevention from Light vs. Treatment of Heavy Use. Working paper 214, Department of Operations Research and Systems Theory, Vienna University of Technology.
Brito Dagobert L. and Michael D. Intriligator 1992 Narco-traffic and guerrilla warfare: a new symbiosis. Defence Economics 3 (4), 263– 274.Google Scholar
Caulkins Jonathon P., C. Peter Rydell, William L. Schwabe, and James Chiesa 1997 Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences: Throwing Away the Key of the Taxpayers' Money? Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Chabet Jorge 2002 Mexico's war on drugs: no margin for manoeuvre. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 582, 134– 148.Google Scholar
Clark Colin W. 1971 Economically optimal policies for the utilization of biologically renewable resources. Mathematical Bioscience 17, 245– 268.Google Scholar
Clark Colin W. 1976 Mathematical Bioeconomics. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Collins David and Helen Lapsley 1991 Estimating the Economic Costs of Drug Abuse in Australia. National Campaign Against Drug Abuse, Monograph Series No. 15, Australian Government Printing Service.
Crane Barry D., A. Rex Rivolo, and Gary C. Comfort 1997 An Empirical Examination of Counter-Drug Interdiction Program Effectiveness. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defence Analysis.
Dechert W. Davis and Kazuo Nishimura 1983 A complete characterization of optimal growth paths in an aggregated model with a non-concave production function. Journal of Economic Theory 31 (2), 332– 354.Google Scholar
Ferrence Roberta 2001 Diffusion theory and drug use. Addiction 96, 165– 173.Google Scholar
Feichtinger Gustav and Richard F. Hartl 1986 Optimale Kontrolle Ökonomischer Prozesse. New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Gerstein Dean R., Robert A. Johnson, Henrick J. Harwood, Douglas Fountain, Natalie Suter, and Kay Malloy 1994 Evaluating Recovery Services: The California Drug and Alcohol Treatment Assessment. Chicago IL and Lewin-VHI Fairfax, VA: National Opinion Research Center.
Harwood Henrick J., Douglas Fountain, and Gina Livermore 1998 The Economic Costs of Alcohol and Drug Abuse in the United States—1992. Rockville, MD: National Institutes of Health.
Kamien Morton I. and Nancy L. Schwartz 1991 Dynamic Optimization, 2nd Ed. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Kennally Gerald 2001 Regulating the trade in recreational drugs. European Journal of Law and Economics 11 (1), 69– 82.Google Scholar
Klein Axel 1999 Nigeria and the drugs war. Review of African Political Economy 26 (79), 51– 73.Google Scholar
Majumdar Makul and Tapan Mitra 1980 On Optimal Exploitation of a Renewable Resources in a Non-Convex Environment and the Minimum Safe Standard of Conservation. Working paper no. 223, Cornell University.
Rydell C. Peter, Jonathon P. Caulkins, and Susan S. Everingham 1996 Enforcement or treatment: modelling the relative efficacy of alternatives for controlling cocaine. Operations Research 44 (6), 687– 695.Google Scholar
Skiba A.K. 1978 Optimal growth with a convex-concave production function. Econometrica 46 (3), 527– 539.Google Scholar
Tragler Gernot, Jonathon P. Caulkins, and Gustav Feichtinger 2001 Optimal dynamic allocation of treatment and enforcement in illicit drug control. Operations Research 49 (3), 352– 362.Google Scholar
Thoumi Francisco 2002 Illegal drugs in Colombia: from illegal economic boom to social crisis. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 582, 102– 116.Google Scholar
Xie Xiaodi, Jurgen Rehrn, Eric Single, Lynda Robson, and Josh Paul 1998 The economic costs of illicit drug use in Ontario: 1992. Health Economics 7 (1), 81– 85.Google Scholar