distance elasticity −1.97***
contiguity −1.855***
common language −1.759***
US MLAT suppression −2.539***
observations 353,983
cryptomarkets 10
drug categories 57
exporters 63
importers 88
classifier accuracy 98.4%
live markets 8
panel extended 2013–22
distance elasticity −1.97***
contiguity −1.855***
common language −1.759***
US MLAT suppression −2.539***
observations 353,983
cryptomarkets 10
drug categories 57
exporters 63
importers 88
classifier accuracy 98.4%
live markets 8
panel extended 2013–22
Vendor Profile
Active · Los Angeles · Verified
ryder mawby
illicit market analyst · cryptomarket intelligence · empirical economist
vendor ryder mawby
ships from Los Angeles, CA
category Cryptomarket Intelligence · Illicit Trade Analysis · OSINT
feedback 353,983 observations · 98.4% accuracy · distance β −1.97***
payment correspondence · collaboration · data
escrow rydermawby@berkeley.edu
profile → about  ·  CV  ·  github
Working Paper
SSRN Working Paper · May 2026 · Prepared for Journal of International Economics
Anti-Gravity Exists: Evidence from Darknet Drug Markets
Hikari Archive (CMU) · Gwern Darknet Market Archive · CEPII Gravity Database · DOJ MLAT Coverage  ·  PPML · ppmlhdfe · country-pair clustered SE
Conventional gravity theory predicts that shared borders, common languages, and colonial ties facilitate trade. On darknet cryptomarkets, they behave antithetically — yielding a distance elasticity of −1.97 and sign inversions across all standard facilitation variables. The suppression operates entirely through the intensive margin and is consistent with a bilateral enforcement coordination mechanism.
−1.97***
Distance elasticity — exceeds the canonical licit-goods range of −0.9 to −1.5, consistent with added enforcement deterrence on international illegal shipments. Lower bound given advertised-destination measurement.
inverted
All facilitation variables carry the wrong sign. Contiguity (−1.855***), common official language (−1.759***), and colonial ties (−1.015**) suppress bilateral drug trade — the inverse of every licit-goods gravity study in the literature. Effect operates entirely through the intensive margin.
−2.539***
MLAT enforcement coordination mechanism. Routes with formal US mutual legal assistance treaty obligations generate substantially less conditional trade volume — independent of the language coefficient — directly implicating institutional enforcement coordination, not anonymity-seeking behavior.
98.4%
8-stage multilingual classification pipeline resolving vendor-entered listings into a 57-category pharmacological taxonomy across English, German, Dutch, Finnish, and French. Validated on 353,983 Hikari listings. Publicly available for any cryptomarket dataset.
Paper PDF SSRN Replication Code Drug Taxonomy Classifier Repo
Methods & Tools
PPML gravity · high-dimensional FE
Panel data · DiD · event study
Multilingual classification pipelines
Live cryptomarket data collection
Stata · R (httr/rvest, magick, tidyverse) · Python
Causal inference · IV
OSINT · darknet market monitoring
Illicit payment rail analysis