Cooperation without third-party enforcement is particularly puzzling in illicit online markets given the anonymity of online exchanges in the ‘dark web’ and the asymmetry of information between buyers and sellers. Most of the literature investigates the effects of reputation systems on sales. Less is known about the role of (semi)institutionalized solutions to trust problems, such as the escrow service, which deposits payments for online purchases with the market platform and releases them only upon confirmation of the item delivery by a customer. We study the effect of such a trust intermediary on sales in a cryptomarket for illegal drugs. Using a large dataset of illegal online transactions, we estimate two sets of fixed effects models predicting the sellers’ choice to offer the trust intermediary and examine the effects of such a choice on sales. Our results indicate that the trust intermediary reduces online drug sales. We explain this finding by showing suggestive evidence that escrow may crowd out traders’ trust and reciprocity. Our findings have implications for theories of the role of institutions in online markets and offer policy recommendations for law enforcement agencies.

中文翻译：

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非法药物加密市场中的信任中介

鉴于“暗网”中在线交易的匿名性以及买卖双方之间信息的不对称性，在非法在线市场中没有第三方执法的合作尤其令人费解。大多数文献调查了声誉系统对销售的影响。人们对（半）制度化解决信任问题的作用知之甚少，例如托管服务，该服务将在线购买的付款存入市场平台，并仅在客户确认商品交付后才释放。我们研究了这种信托中介对非法药物加密市场销售的影响。使用大量非法在线交易数据集，我们估计了两组固定效应模型来预测卖家选择提供信任中介并检查这种选择对销售的影响。我们的结果表明，信任中介减少了在线药品销售。我们通过展示托管可能会排挤交易者的信任和互惠的暗示性证据来解释这一发现。我们的研究结果对机构在在线市场中的作用理论具有影响，并为执法机构提供政策建议。