# Spatial Modeling and Analysis of the Determinants of Property Crime in Portugal
## 4 Results and Discussion
### Spatial Analyses of the Coefficients
Their results show that property crime rates are affected by income inequality on the micro-level, and that income inequality has a determinant role in crime levels across block groups. [PERSON] [75] applied a decomposition model at different time frames to a panel dataset of Canadian provinces (1981-2009) and concluded that the long- and short-run effect of GPP per capita on property crime was statistically insignificant. [PERSON] et al. [72] argue that poverty leads to property crime in the long run in the USA. In an across-countries study, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [76] empirically concluded that absolute income inequality is a more significant and robust determinant of violent property crime than relative inequality. A cross-national study showed that income inequality has little or no effect on crime in Western/Southern Europe [77]. [PERSON] [78] modeled annual crime records (1993-2009) in Portugal, using an autoregressive distributed lag approach, and observed a negative relationship between economic deprivation and property crimes, whereas the relationship was positive for crimes against people (except threat and coercion, and domestic violence). Beneficiaries of income from government assistance exhibited positive coefficients in a GWPR model applied to motor vehicle theft in a Mexican city [50]. The unemployment rate local coefficients have a negative sign in most of the country (Figure 5), as expected as per the [PERSON] [79] theory, whereas they are positive in several municipalities. This variable shows a higher positive effect on property crimes in Idanha-a-Nova (Castelo Branco district in central Portugal), Santiago do Cacem (Setubal district in the southwest), and Mourao (Evora district in the southeast). According to [PERSON] [79], \"the total effect of the unemployment rate is the sum of positive motivational and negative opportunity impacts.\" They argue that the unemployment rate has a negative short-run effect on crime rates due to decreasing criminal opportunities, while an increasing unemployment trend has a positive (long-run) effect due to increased criminal motivation. Many studies addressed these issues, and their theory is still controversial. [PERSON] [75] considered both motivational and opportunity impacts on crime by investigating the combined effects of unemployment and economic variables at different time frames in Canadian provinces (1981-2009) and observed significant negative short- and long-run effects of unemployment on property crime. [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [80] investigated the long-run relationship between property crime, unemployment, inequality, and deterrence activity in the USA at the state level using a nonstationary panel model (1978-2013), and their results show significantly positive long-run effects of unemployment on property crime. Using a two-way fixed effects model and twenty years of data (1990-2009), [PERSON] and [PERSON] (1981) found that urban counties in Pennsylvania, USA, experience both a criminal opportunity effect and a criminal motivation effect, but there was no evidence for either in rural counties. The social disorganization theory suggests that areas where the concentration of minorities predominates are generally positively correlated with crime, presuming possible integration difficulties and social deprivation. [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2011) found that violent crimes, mostly robberies or thefts, had a positive association with the percentage of migrants in the Santa Fe neighborhood of Mexico City at the census block level. As expected, the foreign population has a positive association with property crimes in most of the study region (Figure 5). Even though southern municipalities have a higher proportion of foreign population, the local coefficients are higher in the north, particularly in Moimenta da Beira, Penedono, and Tarouca. Conversely, they are negative in some municipalities of the Viseu district, Mealhada, and Baiao.