By Elia Acciai, Michele Belloni, Marina Della Giusta

This paper provides evidence of a consistent gap in the value of cultural goods exported from Italy and the value declared by its trading partners in official trade statistics for the period 1994-2021 and discusses it in the context of the literature on illicit trafficking in cultural property, a phenomenon that plights a number of both developing and developed countries rich in cultural heritage. Differences between the four categories of cultural goods recorded (archaeological goods, antiquities, paintings, and sculptures) are exploited to highlight potential areas where trafficking might be expected to be larger. We construct a panel dataset to estimate a gravity model of the gap including market size, extent of trade, level of corruption and adoption of protective legislation (UNESCO and UNIDROIT) and discuss results indicating further questions to be investigated in this important and to date under researched policy area.

IZA Discussion Paper No. 16282

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics . 2023. 18p.

By Caroline Cox and Luke Hauser

ABSTRACT - The United Kingdom, with the introduction of the Ivory Act2018, is at the forefront of elephant protection, and it is hopedthat governmental commitments, made in the 25 YearEnvironment Plan, will see increased protection for other spe-cies at risk due to the illegal wildlife trade. However, one spe-cies that currently falls outside of the regulation of theConvention on International Trade in Endangered Species ofWild Fauna and Flora (CITES) can be directly linked to the ivorytrade: the mammoth. The woolly mammoth became extinctmore than 10,000 years ago, but the genus Mammuthus, sinceits appearance in Africa c.5 ma, was one of the most successfulmegafaunal groups, radiating into 10 species and found acrossthe Northern Hemisphere from Siberia to Crete. As the worldwarms and the permafrost melts, mammoth tusks are beinguncovered across the Northern Hemisphere, particularly inSiberia’s Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). There are close similaritiesbetween the tusks of elephants and mammoths, leading con-servationists to fear that the increase in “ice ivory” heralds anew threat to elephants and our wider understanding of the“woolly” mammoth and its world.1. IntroductionThere are no accurate figures for the value of the illegal wildlife trade.1In common with other illegal activities, dealers in illegally sourced wildlifeproducts will not exhibit the kinds of behavior associated with legal traders(such as the completion of accurate tax returns).

Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy, Volume 26, Issue 1, 2023, 26p.