Research and Publications

The SMU Human Trafficking Data Research Project brings together teams of researchers and organizations from around the world to produce the highest quality outcomes and recommendations for anti-trafficking practices, procedures, and policymaking.  Through this research, new datasets are created to add to the existing datasets within the SMU Human Trafficking Data Warehouse.  Each dataset adds to the overlapping information that produces new insights and opportunities for fighting human trafficking.

SMU’s unique collaborative setting allows economics, information technology, gaming, law, education, theology, public policy, and other disciplines to come together to solve world problems.  SMU contains vast resources, such as the expertise of SMU Guildhall (one of the top U.S. computer gaming graduate schools), a supercomputer (M3), SMU’s research centers, departments, libraries, interdisciplinary research groups, and a law school.

Jang, Y., Sundararajan, R.R., Barreto-Souza, W., and Wheaton-Páramo, E. (2024). Determining economic factors for sex trafficking in the United States using count time series regression. Empirical Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-023-02549-w

Clark, C. and Buongiorno, S. (2023). Fallen Shadows game concept.

Hossain, T., Mitra, A., and Wheaton-Páramo, E. Human trafficking in the child welfare population.  International Atlantic Economics Conference, Philadelphia, PA, October 8, 2023.

Mitra, A., Hossain, T., and Wheaton-Páramo, E. Human trafficking in the U.S.: What do the data say?  International Atlantic Economics Conference, Philadelphia, PA, October 7, 2023.

Wheaton-Páramo, E.  The cost of doing nothing about human trafficking. International Atlantic Economics Conference, Philadelphia, PA, October 6, 2023.

Wheaton, E. (2019). Economics of Human Rights. Oxford: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/The-Economics-of-Human-Rights/Wheaton/p/book/9781138500167

Wheaton, E. and Schauer, E. (2010). Child and Adolescent Labor. Encyclopedia of Adolescence. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33228-4_228

Schauer, E. and Wheaton, E. (2011). Sex Trafficking Worldwide. Encyclopedia of Adolescence. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_253

Wheaton, E., Schauer, E., and Galli, T. (2010). Economics of Human Trafficking. International Migration, 48(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2009.00592.x

Schauer, E. and Wheaton, E. (June 2006). Sex Trafficking Into The United States: A Literature Review. Criminal Justice Review, 31(2), 146-169. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734016806290136