One assumption I don't see covered at all, they seem to be assuming that the percentages of total crime being reported to police is constant. The study uses UC

One assumption I don't see covered at all, they seem to be assuming that the percentages of total crime being reported to police is constant. The study uses UCR data which only records the number of crimes reported to police. How can we know that the correlation here isn't actually that the likelihood of a crime being reported is linked to inflation? I.e. with lower inflation I'm less willing to deal with reporting some types of crimes to police, but with higher inflation I'm stressed personally and financially and am more likely to report a crime.