Economic Analysis of Theft Reporting: the Case of Mexico City

Theft is the major component of crime rates in Mexico City and its reporting remains low and stable even when the budget assigned to federal public security reached an increase of 202.23% in 2006-2010. We develop a utility maximization model that attempts to explain the incentives that individuals face when theft reporting and we empirically verify it. We empirically verify a direct relationship between theft reporting and the recovered proportion of what is robbed. Also, we find an inverse relationship between theft reporting and (i) its price, and (ii) theft itself.