{"id":340,"date":"2014-06-10T16:43:02","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T16:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=340"},"modified":"2015-10-13T19:06:08","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T19:06:08","slug":"italy-and-the-gdp-when-markets-meet-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2014\/06\/10\/italy-and-the-gdp-when-markets-meet-morality\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy and the GDP: When Markets Meet Morality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last month Italy announced that it would be including revenue from illegal activities such as drug trafficking and prostitution in its GDP. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/finance-and-economics\/21603073-italys-inclusion-illicit-activities-its-figures-excites-much-interest-sex\"><i>The Economist <\/i>reports<\/a> that this isn\u2019t all new\u2014Italy has been recording its \u201cshadow economy\u201d of unregistered businesses since 1987\u2014but the news reminds us how difficult it is to properly measure economic growth even when we think the statistics are cut and dried. Recessions make us take <i>resources<\/i> seriously, and research shows that the best resources for some social groups can often be the least legit.<\/p>\n<h5>Both in-depth ethnographic work and statistical studies show that some of the poorest communities in the U.S. are booming with entrepreneurship\u2014it\u2019s just that most of the work is, well, off the books.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/sociology.columbia.edu\/node\/161\">Sudhir Venkatesh<\/a>. 2006. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/catalog.php?isbn=9780674030718\"><i>Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor<\/i><\/a><i>. <\/i>Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pricetheory.uchicago.edu\/levitt\/home.html\">Steven D. Levitt<\/a> and Sudhir Venkatesh. 2000 &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/qje.oxfordjournals.org\/content\/115\/3\/755.full.pdf\">An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang&#8217;s Finances.<\/a>&#8221; <i>The Quarterly Journal of Economics<\/i> 115(3): 755-789.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>Legal and illegal markets share many of the same coordination problems, but state restrictions change the social relationships in illegal markets. Taxation and regulation may actually be better methods to quell illegal markets than prohibition.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mpifg.de\/people\/jb1\/index_en.asp\">Jens Beckert<\/a> and Frank Wehinger. 2013. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/ser.oxfordjournals.org\/content\/11\/1\/5.full.pdf+html\">In the Shadow: Illegal Markets and Economic Sociology<\/a>.\u201d <i>Socio-Economic Review<\/i> 11(1): 5-30<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/home.uchicago.edu\/gbecker\/\">Gary S. Becker<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagobooth.edu\/faculty\/directory\/m\/kevin-m-murphy\">Kevin M. Murphy<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gc.cuny.edu\/Faculty\/Core-Bios\/Michael-Grossman\">Michael Grossman<\/a>. 2006. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/full\/10.1086\/498918#_i42\">The Market for Illegal Goods: the case of drugs.<\/a>\u201d<i>Journal of Political Economy<\/i> 114(1): 38-60<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>This doesn\u2019t just happen with poor communities or criminal enterprises, though. Secondary markets where companies resell their goods and services\u2014such as \u201cgray markets\u201d for unauthorized transactions or the budding market for buying up strangers\u2019 life insurance policies\u2014highlight the shifting boundaries between market regulation and social morality.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.soc.washington.edu\/faculty-details\/slquinn\">Sarah Quinn<\/a>. 2008. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/full\/10.1086\/592861#_i26\">The Transformation of Morals in Markets: Death, Benefits, and the Exchange of Life Insurance Policies<\/a>.\u201d <i>American Journal of Sociology<\/i> 114(3): 738-780<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ivey.uwo.ca\/faculty\/directory\/kersi-antia\/\">Kersi D. Anita<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.carlsonschool.umn.edu\/faculty-research\/faculty.aspx?x500=mbergen\">Mark Bergen<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marshall.usc.edu\/faculty\/directory\/sdutta\">Shantanu Dutta<\/a>. 2004. <a href=\"http:\/\/sloanreview.mit.edu\/article\/competing-with-gray-markets\/\">\u201cCompeting with Gray Markets.\u201d<\/a><i>MIT Sloan Management Review. <\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For more on the social construction of markets and value, check out<a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/06\/02\/what-is-money-alan-watts-on-the-false-idea-that-money-is-a-resource\/\"> this Sociological Images post<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2014\/03\/12\/is-bitcoin-a-bust\/\">a previous TROT on Bitcoin.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\" async=\"\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- TSP testing --><br \/>\n <ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"><\/ins> style=&#8221;display:inline-block;width:234px;height:60px&#8221;<br \/>\n data-ad-client=&#8221;ca-pub-4670099812817063&#8243;<br \/>\n data-ad-slot=&#8221;1069646635&#8243;&gt;<br \/>\n<script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month Italy announced that it would be including revenue from illegal activities such as drug trafficking and prostitution in its GDP. The Economist reports that this isn\u2019t all new\u2014Italy has been recording its \u201cshadow economy\u201d of unregistered businesses since 1987\u2014but the news reminds us how difficult it is to properly measure economic growth even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,85],"tags":[38547,131,64,38546],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-politics","tag-crime","tag-economy","tag-globalization","tag-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2014\/06\/15143489826_4bb4e2ba9b_k.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}