DP3891 The Determinants of Employee Crime in the UK

Author(s):	Neil Rickman, Robert Witt
Publication Date:	May 2003
Keyword(s):	employee crime, labour markets
JEL(s):	J20, K42
Programme Areas:	Public Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=3891

For the first time, we present evidence on employee theft in the UK using data on actual recorded crime. We present a model where employees are ?rational cheaters? with ?consciences? to produce hypotheses about the role of labour market (wages, unemployment) and social (age, education) influences on employee theft. We then examine the role of these influences using regional crime data supplemented by data from the LFS. Our results provide information on two competing views of motivations for crime and on policy to combat employee crime.