Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20544
Year of Publication: 
2004
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 1278
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
People spend a lot of time commuting and often find it a burden. According to economics, the burden of commuting is chosen when compensated either on the labor or on the housing market so that individuals? utility is equalized. However, in a direct test of this strong notion of equilibrium, we find that people with longer commuting time report systematically lower subjective well-being. Additional empirical analyses do not find institutional explanations of the empirical results that commuters systematically incur losses. We discuss several possibilities of an extended model of human behavior able to explain this ?commuting paradox?.
Subjects: 
location theory
commuting
compensating variation
subjective well-being
JEL: 
R41
D61
D12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
858.71 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.