Economics of Crime Simulator
- 8 hours ago
- 2 min read
This is the second post in relation to Economics of Crime. The first post was A-Level friendly extension/enrichment reading on the links between Market Structures and Organised Crime. You can check that out here.
In a recent interview for the Royal Economics Society Newsletter, I was asked about my favourite area of Economics. My response was that I love finding Economics in unexpected places, such as crime. I remember studying Becker's Model of Crime at Uni and really enjoying it, and when I revisited it recently when clearing a box of old notes, I realised that the maths involved was relatively easy.
Modelling is such a big part of Economics, but at A-Level the emphasis is much more on using diagram models than mathematical ones. I think that's the right call, but I do think 17-year-old me would have really enjoyed a bit of experience in mathematical modelling as an interesting extra. I also wonder whether young mathematicians who don't study A-Level Econ might be tempted after playing around with models like this too.
Below is a powerpoint explaining the model and simulator model because plugging numbers into a calculator is a bit dull. There are 3 modes: basic just looks at expected net benefit or cost to the criminal, intermediate starts to think about the cost of increasing detection and advanced also looks at factors such as prison costs.
Students are welcome to just play around with the simulation, but there is also a workbook with a bunch of activities to guide students through the key implications. It even gets as far as looking at marginal deterrence, and the impact of the 3 strikes laws in some US states.
This might be a good activity for an extracurricular Econ group or you could ping it across to your Maths colleagues if your school has an extracurricular maths or stem club. I think it could even be accessible to very bight students as young as Year 10 and could potentially work as a taster to Y11s, depending on your intake . The only economic knowledge needed is opportunity cost, but only a very basic understanding is needed and this is explained in the slides. If you wish to send it to students to explore independently, perhaps as an extension activity, I have also done the powerpoint as a video, which you can access here.