Book Forum 

# *Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel*

(PublicAffairs, 2016)

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Date and Time 

March 2, 2016 1 - 2:30 PM EST 

Location 

Hayek Auditorium 

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##### Featuring 

Featuring the author **Tom Wainwright**, Britain Editor and Former Mexico City Bureau Chief, *The Economist*; with comments by **Moisés Naím**, Distinguished Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; moderated by **Juan Carlos Hidalgo**, Policy Analyst on Latin America, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, Cato Institute. 

[[![Media Name: narconomics-cover.jpg](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/optimized/public/images/narconomics-cover.jpg?itok=q-ZpV0hX)](/sites/cato.org/files/images/narconomics-cover.jpg)](http://www.amazon.com/Narconomics-How-Run-Drug-Cartel/dp/1610395832?tag=catoinstitute-20)

Drug trafficking is one of the most resilient and lucrative industries in the world, with estimated revenues of $300 billion a year. Despite the tens of billions of dollars that governments spend every year trying to disrupt them, drug cartels have shown tremendous ingenuity, adaptability, and entrepreneurship to satisfy over a quarter billion customers worldwide. Tom Wainwright will use insights from classical economics and modern business theory to explain how drug cartels work, why they’re thriving, and how the illicit business could be defeated by the laws of economics—that is, by recognizing the futility of prohibition. Moisés Naím will relate the book’s insights to current hemispheric affairs.

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