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  • Published: 3 April 2017
  • ISBN: 9781785030420
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99

Narconomics

How To Run a Drug Cartel




What big business has taught the drug lords.

Everything drug cartels do to survive and prosper they’ve learnt from big business – brand value and franchising from McDonald’s, supply chain management from Walmart, diversification from Coca-Cola. Whether it’s human resourcing, R&D, corporate social responsibility, off-shoring, problems with e-commerce or troublesome changes in legislation, the drug lords face the same strategic concerns companies like Ryanair or Apple. So when the drug cartels start to think like big business, the only way to understand them is using economics.

In Narconomics, Tom Wainwright meets everyone from coca farmers in secret Andean locations, deluded heads of state in presidential palaces, journalists with a price on their head, gang leaders who run their empires from dangerous prisons and teenage hitmen on city streets - all in search of the economic truth.

  • Published: 3 April 2017
  • ISBN: 9781785030420
  • Imprint: Ebury Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Tom Wainwright

Tom Wainwright is the Britain editor of The Economist. Until 2013 he was the newspaper’s Mexico City correspondent, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, as well as parts of South America and the United States border region. Before moving to Mexico in early 2010 he covered crime and social affairs for the Britain section of The Economist. He has a first-class degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University.

Praise for Narconomics

Superb. One of the most original and smart takes I have read on the drugs world.

Moisés Naím, author of 'Illicit'

A daring work of investigative journalism and a well-reasoned argument for smarter drug policies.

Kirkus Reviews

Great fun… He reveals how drug barons run their illegal multi-billion dollar global businesses in much the same way as Fortune 500 chief executives.

Sunday Times

An economics manual for the Breaking Bad generation… a fascinating account.

The Times

One of the pithiest and most persuasive arguments for drug law reform I have ever read.

Misha Glenny, New York Times

This is a clearly written and unassumingly clever book.

The Independent

[An] exhilarating trip into the heart of the illegal narcotics industry. One of the most exciting business books of the last few years.

Management Today

A lively and engaging book.

Wall Street Journal

This is a clearly written and unassumingly clever book

Oliver Poole, The Independent

An economics manual for the Breaking Bad generation…a fascinating account

Fiona Wilson, The Times

Great fun…He reveals how drug barons run their illegal multi-billion dollar global businesses in much the same way as Fortune 500 chief executives.

John Arlidge, The Sunday Times

One of the pithiest and most persuasive arguments for drug law reform I have ever read

Misha Glenny, New York Times