Black market
[5] Common motives for operating in black markets are to trade contraband, avoid taxes and regulations, or evade price controls or rationing.
[11] The "informal economy" circumvents the costs of, and is excluded from the benefits and rights incorporated in, the laws and administrative rules covering property relationships, commercial licensing, labor contracts, torts, financial credit, and social security systems.
For example, in Baltimore, many consumers actively prefer illegal taxi cabs, citing that they are more available, convenient, and fairly priced.
[18] For instance, an empirical study showed that the supply of prostitutes rose abruptly in Denver and Minneapolis in 2008 when the Democratic and Republican National Conventions took place there.
[19] Prostitutes in the black market generally operate with some degree of secrecy, sometimes negotiating prices and activities through codewords and subtle gestures.
Despite law enforcement efforts to intercept them, demand remains high, providing a large profit motive for organized criminal groups to keep drugs supplied.
These restrictions can range from small knives to firearms, either altogether or by classification (e.g., caliber, handguns, automatic weapons, and explosives).
Those who may buy this way include criminals to use for illegal activities, gun collectors, and otherwise law-abiding citizens interested in protecting their dwellings, families, or businesses.
In England and Wales, certain categories of weapons used for hunting may be owned by qualified residents but must be registered with the local police force and kept within a locked cabinet.
Among those who may purchase weapons on the black market are people who are unable to pass the legal requirements for registration—convicted felons or those suffering from mental illness for example.
[27] The term "rum-running" most likely originated at the start of Prohibition in the United States (1920–1933), when ships from Bimini in the western Bahamas transported cheap Caribbean rum to Florida speakeasies.
Such smuggling efforts range from vacationers concealing relatively small quantities of tobacco in their luggage to large-scale enterprises linked to organized crime.
[31] As of 2010[update], South Carolina has refused to follow suit and raise taxes from seven cents per pack (the lowest in the USA).
[33] The WHO justifies its stance on the issue by stating, "Payment for... organs is likely to take unfair advantage of the poorest and most vulnerable groups, undermines altruistic donation and leads to profiteering and human trafficking.
[36] The potential problem may be caused by the same party that offers to solve it, although that fact may be concealed, with the intent to engender continual patronage for the racketeer.
The term was coined by the Employers' Association of Chicago in June 1927 in a statement about the influence of organized crime in the Teamsters union.
In Baltimore, Maryland, for example, it is not uncommon for private individuals to provide illegal taxicab service[17] for city residents.
[38] In Sweden, rental contracts with regulated rent can be bought on the black market,[39] either from the current tenant or sometimes directly from the property owner.
[citation needed] Street vendors in countries where there is little enforcement of copyright law, particularly in Asia and Latin America, often sell copies of films, music CDs, and computer software such as video games, sometimes even before the official release of the title.
A determined counterfeiter with a few hundred dollars can make copies that are digitally identical to an original with no loss in quality; innovations in consumer DVD and CD writers and the widespread availability of cracks on the Internet for most forms of copy protection technology make this cheap and easy to do.
Copyright-holders and other proponents of copyright laws have found this phenomenon hard to stop through the courts, as the operations are distributed and widespread,[citation needed] traversing national borders and thus legal systems.
Additionally, not all people agree with copyright laws, on the grounds that they unfairly criminalize competition, allowing the copyright-holder to effectively monopolize related industries.
However, this makes the unsubstantiated assumption that the pirates would have bought the copyrighted material if it had not been available through file sharing or other means.
U.S. currency is viewed as a relatively stable store of value and, since it does not leave a paper trail,[dubious – discuss] it is also a convenient medium of exchange for both illegal transactions and for unreported income both in the U.S. and abroad.
The saving is attractive enough to make for a black market in agricultural diesel, which was estimated in 2007 to cost the UK £350 million annually in lost tax.
The rationing and price controls enforced in many countries during World War II encouraged widespread black market activity.
[58] One source of black-market meat under wartime rationing was farmers declaring fewer domestic animal births to the Ministry of Food than had actually happened.
For example, in the Parliament of the United Kingdom on February 17, 1945,[59] members said that "the whole turkey production of East Anglia had gone to the black market" and "prosecutions [for black-marketing] were like trying to stop a leak in a battleship", and it was said that official prices of such foods were set so low that their producers often sold their produce on the black market for higher prices; one such route (seen to operate at the market at Diss, Norfolk) was to sell live poultry to members of the public; each purchaser would sign a form promising that he was buying the birds to breed from, but then take them home for eating.
During the Vietnam War, American soldiers would spend Military Payment Certificates on maid service and sexual entertainment.
[citation needed] Also if a Vietnamese civilian wanted something that was hard to get, he would buy it at double the price from one of the soldiers, who had a monthly ration card and thus had access to the military stores.
