Stress That Doesn't Pay : The Commuting Paradox

Arbeitspapier

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?.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 1278

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise ; Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis ; Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
• Subject: location theory ; commuting ; compensating variation ; subjective well-being ; Pendelverkehr ; Lebensqualität ; Standorttheorie ; Kompensationslösung ; Theorie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Stutzer, Alois ; Frey, Bruno S.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2004

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20544
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET