Cross-border commuting and consuming: an empirical investigation

Arbeitspapier

This paper analyses empirically how cross-border consumption varies across product and services categories and across household characteristics. It focuses on the part of cross-border sales that arise due to work-related cross-border crossings; it analyses the cross-border consumption behaviour of cross-border commuter households residing in Belgium, France and Germany and working in Luxembourg. In total, it is estimated that these households spend €925 million per annum in Luxembourg, reflecting about 17% of their gross annual income from Luxembourg and contributing about 10% to total household final consumption expenditure in Luxembourg. Cross-border consumption expenditure is shown to depend on individual and household characteristics, such as total household income, the number of cross-border commuters in the household, distance between home and work, as well as price level (index) differences between Luxembourg and its neighbouring countries. Cross-border commuters take advantage of existing arbitrage opportunities.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ECB Working Paper ; No. 1661

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Economic Integration ; Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity ; Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
• Subject: commuting ; Consumption ; cross-border shopping ; expenditure ; households

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Mathä, Thomas Y. ; Porpiglia, Alessandro ; Ziegelmeyer, Michael
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): European Central Bank (ECB)
• (where): Frankfurt a. M.
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/154094
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET