Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales

Fuel prices have increased sharply over the past year. In this study we test the hypothesis that increases in the price of fuel are associated with increases in motorists filling their fuel tank and driving off without paying. We use weekly crime data from six police forces in England and Wales for...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sidebottom, Aiden, Agar, Iain, Kurland, Justin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2023
Materias:
Short Contribution
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10031166/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36970582
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40163-023-00182-7
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author Sidebottom, Aiden
Agar, Iain
Kurland, Justin
author_facet Sidebottom, Aiden
Agar, Iain
Kurland, Justin
author_sort Sidebottom, Aiden
collection PubMed
description Fuel prices have increased sharply over the past year. In this study we test the hypothesis that increases in the price of fuel are associated with increases in motorists filling their fuel tank and driving off without paying. We use weekly crime data from six police forces in England and Wales for the period January 2018 to July 2022, combined with regional data on the number of fuel sales and average fuel prices. Our results demonstrate an overall weak price-theft relationship for the 238 week study period, less so than in previous studies. However, we find strong evidence that the recent spike in fuel prices was associated with elevated levels of fuel theft. The implications of our findings for future research and crime prevention are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-100311662023-03-22 Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales Sidebottom, Aiden Agar, Iain Kurland, Justin Crime Sci Short Contribution Fuel prices have increased sharply over the past year. In this study we test the hypothesis that increases in the price of fuel are associated with increases in motorists filling their fuel tank and driving off without paying. We use weekly crime data from six police forces in England and Wales for the period January 2018 to July 2022, combined with regional data on the number of fuel sales and average fuel prices. Our results demonstrate an overall weak price-theft relationship for the 238 week study period, less so than in previous studies. However, we find strong evidence that the recent spike in fuel prices was associated with elevated levels of fuel theft. The implications of our findings for future research and crime prevention are discussed. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2023-03-22 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC10031166/ /pubmed/36970582 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40163-023-00182-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Short Contribution
Sidebottom, Aiden
Agar, Iain
Kurland, Justin
Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales
title Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales
title_full Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales
title_fullStr Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales
title_full_unstemmed Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales
title_short Do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? Evidence from England and Wales
title_sort do increases in the price of fuel increase levels of fuel theft? evidence from england and wales
topic Short Contribution
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10031166/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36970582
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40163-023-00182-7
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