People shop for groceries at a discount chain store in Seoul on July 4, 2022, amid high inflation. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 18 (Korea Bizwire) — A new study has revealed that higher inflation rates lead to a higher rate of homicide.
Cho Sung-won, an associate professor at Chosun University, recently published an article on how inflation impacts the four major crimes of murder, robbery, theft and assault in the Korea Criminal Intelligence Review.
The study focused on the period from 1990 to 2020 and tried to determine whether there was any correlation between the inflation rate and crime during that period.
The results showed that there was a positive linear relationship between the inflation rate and the four major crimes, which indicates that the higher the inflation rate, the higher the rate of murder, theft, and assault.
The rate of robbery, however, did not have any statistical correlation with the inflation rate.
In detail, a 1 percent increase in the inflation rate led to a 1.75 percent increase in the murder rate, 0.66 percent increase in theft and 0.14 percent increase in assault.
The Bank of Korea forecasted last month that the increase rate of consumer prices will exceed 4.7 percent this year, which is 2 percent higher than last year.
“The economic suffering and undermined standard of living caused by inflation exacerbate social unrest, creating poverty and relative deprivation to incite crime,” Cho said.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
