The relationship between variation in price and theft rates of consumer and commodity goods over time: a systematic review

Objectives Determine if there is a meaningful relationship between variation in price and theft rates of the same type of good over time. Methods Studies were identified by systematically searching major electronic scholarly and grey literature databases and employing footnote chasing. Results From a total of 1717 identified unique documents, 16 studies were assessed as meeting the eligibility criteria for inclusion. Elastic and significant metal price-theft relationships were reported across 13 studies. The relationship between petrol price and petrol theft was also found to be significant and meaningful, but less elastic than for metals. Mixed results were found for the price-theft relationships of jewellery and different consumer goods. Conclusions Evidence was found for the relationship between price and theft rates of some goods but not others, with gradations in strength of the relationship across goods, study characteristics and model specifications.