Shoplifting, monitoring and price determination

Gideon Yaniv

The Journal of Socio-Economics, 2009, vol. 38, issue 4, pages 608-610

Abstract: Shoplifting is a major crime problem costing American retailers more than $10 billion per year. Surprisingly, despite the evolvement of an extensive theoretical literature on the economics of some major economic crimes, shoplifting has failed to attract economists' attention. The present paper applies the economic toolbox to this problem, developing a principal-agent type model of shoplifting and shoplifting control. The model examines the customer's decision of whether to shoplift or not as well as the store's profit-maximizing price and monitoring intensity. The paper challenges the conventional wisdom that the observed rise in shoplifting calls for intensified monitoring and higher prices, showing that a rational response to increased shoplifting involves a reduction in both monitoring and prices.

Keywords: Shoplifting; Monitoring; Price; determination; Public; shame (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:38:y:2009:i:4:p:608-610

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