Deciding to Rule-Break In the Presence of Uncertainty and Relative Desperation - An Agent-Based Modeling Approach

We developed a model that simulates non-violent crime (e.g., property theft) by combining economic theories of decision-making under uncertainty with theories of relative deprivation and ecological theories of desperation thresholds. We find that the interaction of blunted uncertainty aversion and higher relative desperation contributes the most to the crime rate.