Variably Legal Markets: Rethinking Markets And Crime

This book offers a novel perspective for conceptualizing legality in market exchanges. It challenges the conventional binary of ‘legal’ versus ‘illegal’ markets by introducing the concept of variably legal markets―arenas of exchange where legality is conditional, multidimensional, and context-dependent.

Drawing on criminology, law, economics, and regulatory studies, the editors argue that many contemporary markets―such as those involving commercial sex, performance-enhancing drugs, and cryptocurrencies―operate in a blurry middle ground shaped by overlapping legal regimes, inconsistent enforcement, and shifting socio-political norms. To advance this perspective, this collection includes illustrative case studies from experts in this field to reveal how legal status fluctuates across jurisdictions, supply chains, and actors, and how this ambiguity complicates both scholarly analysis and policy interventions. Paoli and Lord call for a more nuanced approach that moves beyond rigid classifications and instead embraces the complexity of realworld market dynamics. This work not only bridges gaps between organized crime and white-collar crime literature but also sets a new agenda for empirical research and regulatory reform.

This collection will be essential reading for students and scholars of criminology, economics, and law. It will also be useful for policymakers and practitioners seeking to understand and govern the messy realities of modern markets.

Letizia Paoli is Professor of Criminology and Chair of the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at KU Leuven, and a Life Member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on organized crime and related ‘global bads’, law and other rule violations in legal markets, and the harms of crime and policy.

Nicholas Lord is Professor of Criminology at the University of Manchester, UK. His research focuses on exploring empirically and conceptually the organization of serious crimes for gain, in particular ‘white-collar crimes’, ‘organized crimes’, illicit financial flows and money laundering, as well as their market contexts.