Smuggling and the Black Market for Foreign Exchange

This paper develops a model of the black market for foreign exchange in which black market currency is demanded and supplied by tirms engaged in smuggling. It is demonstrated that quotas or foreign exchange rationing are not necessary to induce the coexistence of legal and black foreign exchange markets. Variants of the model analyze the implications of capital flight, unbalanced trade, quotas, foreign exchange licensing, and economies with more than two goods.