An Agent-Based Model of Mortality Shocks, Intergenerational Effects, and Urban Crime

Rational criminals choose crime over lawfulness because it pays better; hence poverty correlates to criminal behavior. This correlation is an insufficient historical explanation. An agent-based model of urban crime, mortality, and exogenous population shocks supplements the standard economic story, closing the gap with an empirical reality that often breaks from trend. Agent decision making within the model is built around a career maximization function, with life expectancy as the key independent variable. Rational choice takes the form of a local information heuristic, resulting in subjectively rational suboptimal decision making. The effects of population shocks are explored using the Crime and Mortality Simulation (CAMSIM), with effects demonstrated to persist across generations. Past social trauma are found to lead to higher crime rates which subsequently decline as the effect degrades, though 'aftershocks' are often experienced.

[1]  Keith D. Harries,et al.  Crime and the environment , 1980 .

[2]  Michael S. McPherson,et al.  Microeconomics of College Choice, Careers, and Wages , 1998 .

[3]  H. Simon,et al.  Theories of Decision-Making in Economics and Behavioural Science , 1966 .

[4]  H. D. McKay,et al.  Juvenile delinquency and urban areas : a study of rates of delinquency in relation to differential characteristics of local communities in American cities , 2006 .

[5]  W. Wilson.  The truly disadvantaged : the inner city, the underclass, and public policy , 1988 .

[6]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[7]  Richard R. Smith,et al.  The Limits of Rationality , 1988 .

[8]  V. Mathur,et al.  Economics of Crime: An Investigation of the Deterrent Hypothesis for Urban Areas , 1978 .

[9]  J. Wilson,et al.  BROKEN WINDOWS: THE POLICE AND NEIGHBOURHOOD SAFETY , 1982 .

[10]  H. Simon,et al.  Rationality in Psychology and Economics , 1986 .

[11]  Bruce Sacerdote,et al.  Why is There More Crime in Cities? , 1996, Journal of Political Economy.

[12]  U. Netlogo Wilensky,et al.  Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling , 1999 .

[13]  F. N. House,et al.  The Structure of Social Action: A Study in Social Theory with Special Reference to a Group of Recent European Writers.Talcott Parsons , 1939 .

[14]  Hope Corman,et al.  A Time-Series Analysis of Crime, Deterrence and Drug Abuse in New York City , 2000 .

[15]  T. Schelling.  Micromotives and Macrobehavior , 1978 .

[16]  H. Simon,et al.  Rational choice and the structure of the environment. , 1956, Psychological review.

[17]  David T. Herbert,et al.  The Geography of Urban Crime , 1982 .

[18]  Joshua M. Epstein,et al.  Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up , 1996 .

[19]  Subjective Life Expectancy and Future Time Perspective as Predictors of Job Success in the “Hard-Core Unemployed” , 1970 .

[20]  J. Honnold,et al.  Socialization and demographic determinants of mortality expectations , 1980 .

[21]  Michael L Davis.  Time and Punishment: An Intertemporal Model of Crime , 1988, Journal of Political Economy.

[22]  M. Keane,et al.  The Career Decisions of Young Men , 1997, Journal of Political Economy.

[23]  H. Simon,et al.  A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice , 1955 .

[24]  D. Meadows-Klue.  The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference , 2004 .

[25]  R. Posner,et al.  The Economic Epidemiology of Crime , 1996, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[26]  Gary LaFree,et al.  DECLINING VIOLENT CRIME RATES IN THE 1990S: Predicting Crime Booms and Busts , 1999 .

[27]  J. Coleman.  Foundations of Social Theory , 1990 .

[28]  I. Ehrlich.  Crime, Punishment, and the Market for Offenses , 1996 .

[29]  G. Becker,et al.  Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition , 1993 .

[30]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty , 1982 .

[31]  Ralph B. Taylor.  Breaking Away from Broken Windows: Baltimore Neighborhoods and the Nationwide Fight Against Crime, Grime, Fear, and Decline , 2000 .

[32]  E. Glaeser,et al.  Crime and Social Interactions , 1995 .

[33]  Gary S Becker,et al.  Front matter, Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education , 1965 .

[34]  Jason Potts,et al.  The New Evolutionary Microeconomics: Complexity, Competence and Adaptive Behaviour , 2001 .

[35]  D. Hamermesh,et al.  Expectations, Life Expectancy, and Economic Behavior , 1985 .

[36]  H. Ehrlichman,et al.  Effects of Premature Parental Death on Subjective Life Expectancy, Death Anxiety, and Health Behavior , 1991 .

[37]  J. Stoeckle.  The Unheavenly City: The Nature and Future of Our Urban Crisis , 1971 .

[38]  Keith D. Harries,et al.  The Geography of Crime and Justice , 1976 .

[39]  D. Mccloskey.  The Vices of Economists; The Virtues of the Bourgeoisie , 1997 .

[40]  Siu Fai Leung,et al.  Dynamic Deterrence Theory , 1995 .

[41]  Richard Swedberg,et al.  Economics and Sociology: Redefining Their Boundaries: Conversations with Economists and Sociologists , 1990 .

[42]  V. Noreika,et al.  Environmental Psychology , 2018 .

[43]  C. Manski.  Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem , 1993 .

[44]  Two non-reactive field experiments on stealing from a 'lost' letter. , 1979, The British journal of social and clinical psychology.

[45]  William N. Trumbull.  Estimations of the Economic Model of Crime Using Aggregate and Individual Level Data , 1989 .

[46]  Shlomo Zilberstein,et al.  Models of Bounded Rationality , 1995 .

[47]  Herbert H. Hyman,et al.  Readings in reference group theory and research , 1969 .

[48]  H. Hyman,et al.  The psychology of status , 1980 .