An Economic View about Crime: An Application of Game Theory

Younes Brumand¹

1) urmia university

IOI Code : XYCH-AECBF
Publication : 3rd International conference on Management , Economics and Humanities(icmeh.org)
Abstract :
    In order to analyze certain crime roots, we need to take into account not only social and psychological factors but also the economic ones.Widespread unemployment and low levels of wages caused by an incompetent economic infrastructure can be considered as factors affecting crime. This paper approaches crime from an economic perspective. Individuals commit crimes if they are due to gain some profit. Through defining the amounts of incomes and costs of taking a criminal action we can define the function of profit expectancy for individuals by means of the game theory, and hence judge on individuals’ behaviors on the basis of that profit function. This paper first defines a profit function for an individual to analyze alternatives which an individual encounters for committing or avoiding a crime, and then presents some procedures in order to increase the costs of crimes and therefore decrease the profits of such actions.

Keywords : economics of crime crime roots economic factors profit function game theory