The relationship between economic inequality and crime through an agent based model approach

Treball Final de Grau en Economia. Codi: EC1049. Curs acadèmic: 2021/2022The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship existing between inequality and crime. Once the main definitions needed for the analysis have been set out, the link existing between inequality and crime has been deeply investigated through an empirical perspective and then through an agent based model approach. Many previous papers have explored the relationship existing between the two phenomena through econometric techniques, and a positive correlation was found, but often econometric tools are limited in explaining social problems such as crime. For this reason, in this paper we use an Agent-based modeling (ABM) approach, which is a type of simulation study, produced via a computer software, in this case Netlogo, that develops a virtual society and allows for controlled experimentation. Once the simulation has been carried out, by looking at the results we can say that according to our model, inequality and crime rates are positively related