The Illicit Global Economy: What Everyone Needs To Know®

by Peter Andreas

The illicit global economy encompasses cross-border flows of goods, people, money, and information unauthorized by either the sending or receiving country. Typically, this means flows that are prohibited (endangered species and narcotics), regulated (migrants, cigarettes, arms), stolen (art and antiquities), or counterfeit (ranging from prescription medicines to currency). Some of these flows are obscure (the black-market trade in bear bile) or mostly a law enforcement nuisance (cross-border trade in stolen vehicle parts), but others receive enormous policy and media attention (drug trafficking and human smuggling). Still others have severe environmental impacts (toxic waste, illegal logging, overfishing, and poaching) and security implications (sanctions busting and arms trafficking). Collectively, these flows reflect the illicit side of the global economy.

The Illicit Global What Everyone Needs to Know® answers the key questions about how illicit global markets are structured and operate, how they intersect with state institutions and practices, how they interact with the legal economy, and how they shape and are shaped by domestic and international politics. This pithy yet authoritative primer helps readers make sense of a crucial part of the global economy that is too often either neglected or distorted. In this regard, an underlying theme in the book is the need for a more historically informed critical perspective that challenges the many myths and misconceptions about the illicit global economy that are all-too-prevalent in contemporary media accounts, Hollywood depictions, popular books, and policy debates.

240 pages, Paperback

Published June 2, 2025

About the author

Peter Andreas is a professor in the Department of Political Science and the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. He was previously an Academy Scholar at Harvard University, a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and an SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Fellow on International Peace and Security. Andreas has written numerous books, published widely in scholarly journals and policy magazines, presented Congressional testimony, written op-eds for major newspapers, and provided frequent media commentary.

Reviews

[Andy Barca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Peter Andreas's "The Illicit Global Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know" largely echoes what I already knew about the shadowy underbelly of global trade. Fresh insights were scarce, though a handful of anecdotes caught my eye. It's rather disappointing, considering the trove of richer material out there in other sources; this could have been far more captivating with a dash of flair.