Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Stress That Doesn't Pay: The Commuting Paradox

Contents:

Author Info

  • Alois Stutzer
  • Bruno S. Frey

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’.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.iew.uzh.ch/wp/iewwp151.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich in its series IEW - Working Papers with number 151.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation:
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:151

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Blümlisalpstrasse 10, CH-8006 Zürich
Phone: +41-1-634 22 05
Fax: +41-1-634 49 07
Email:
Web page: http://www.ubscenter.uzh.ch/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: location theory; commuting; compensating variation; subjective well-being;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2001. "What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?," CESifo Working Paper Series 503, CESifo Group Munich.
  2. Easterlin, Richard A, 2001. "Income and Happiness: Towards an Unified Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(473), pages 465-84, July.
  3. John P. Conley & Hideo Konishi, 2000. "Migration-Proof Tiebout Equilibrium: Existence and Asymptotic Efficiency," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 452, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 01 Dec 2000.
  4. McMillen, Daniel P. & Singell, Larry Jr., 1992. "Work location, residence location, and the intraurban wage gradient," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 195-213, September.
  5. O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 1997. "Doing It Now or Later," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt7t44m5b0, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
  6. Alois Stutzer, . "The Role of Income Aspirations in Individual Happiness," IEW - Working Papers 124, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
  7. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, . "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," IEW - Working Papers 015, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
  8. Robert J. MacCulloch & Rafael Di Tella & Andrew J. Oswald, 2001. "Preferences over Inflation and Unemployment: Evidence from Surveys of Happiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 335-341, March.
  9. Oswald, A.J., 1997. "Happiness and Economic Performance," Papers 18, Centre for Economic Performance & Institute of Economics.
  10. Crampton, Graham R., 1999. "Urban labour markets," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: P. C. Cheshire & E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 39, pages 1499-1557 Elsevier.
  11. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1979. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk," Levine's Working Paper Archive 7656, David K. Levine.
  12. Small, Kenneth A. & Gomez-Ibanez, Jose A., 1999. "Urban transportation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: P. C. Cheshire & E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 46, pages 1937-1999 Elsevier.
  13. Ommeren, Jos van & Berg, Gerard J. van den & Gorter, Cees, 1998. "Estimating the marginal willingness to pay for commuting," Serie Research Memoranda 0046, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
  14. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-59, May.
  15. Gobillon, Laurent & Selod, Harris & Zenou, Yves, 2003. "Spatial Mismatch: From the Hypothesis to the Theories," CEPR Discussion Papers 3740, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  16. Jos van Ommeren & Gerard J. van den Berg & Cees Gorter, 1998. "Estimating the Marginal Willingness to pay for commuting," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 98-099/3, Tinbergen Institute.
  17. So, Kim Sui & Orazem, Peter & Otto, Daniel, 2009. "The Effect of Housing Prices, Wages, and Commuting Time on Joint Residential and Job Location Choices," Staff General Research Papers 4050, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
  18. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, 07.
  19. Heidi Lepper, 1998. "Use of Other-Reports to Validate Subjective Well-Being Measures," Social Indicators Research, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 367-379, July.
  20. Ravallion, Martin & Lokshin, Michael, 2000. "Identifying welfare effects from subjective questions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2301, The World Bank.
  21. Sendhil Mullainathan & Marianne Bertrand, 2001. "Do People Mean What They Say? Implications for Subjective Survey Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 67-72, May.
  22. Rafael Lalive, 2007. "Do Wages Compensate for Workplace Disamenities?," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 53(3), pages 273-298.
  23. Alois Stutzer & Bruno S. Frey, 2003. "Reported Subjective Well-Being: A Challenge for Economic Theory and Economic Policy," CREMA Working Paper Series 2003-07, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
  24. Wildasin, David E., 1987. "Theoretical analysis of local public economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 29, pages 1131-1178 Elsevier.
  25. Matthew Rabin, 1998. "Psychology and Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 11-46, March.
  26. Weinberg, Daniel H. & Friedman, Joseph & Mayo, Stephen K., 1981. "Intraurban residential mobility: The role of transactions costs, market imperfections, and household disequilibrium," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 332-348, May.
  27. Kahneman, Daniel & Wakker, Peter P & Sarin, Rakesh, 1997. "Back to Bentham? Explorations of Experienced Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 112(2), pages 375-405, May.
  28. Winkelmann, Liliana & Winkelmann, Rainer, 1998. "Why Are the Unemployed So Unhappy? Evidence from Panel Data," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 65(257), pages 1-15, February.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Happiness policy
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2010-11-15 17:02:09
  2. Iris Robinson & projection bias
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2010-01-10 17:00:00
  3. Happiness vs preferences
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2009-09-16 14:20:54
  4. Alone Together - The Commuter's Situation
    by ? in The Situationist on 2007-04-26 12:00:00
  5. Happiness vs options
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2013-02-27 13:18:59
  6. Commuting and well-being
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2006-09-25 11:21:57
  7. Happiness & Commuting The Stress That Doesnâ??t Pay: The Commuting Paradox
    by Miguel in Simoleon Sense on 2010-03-30 17:17:51
  8. Killer commutes
    by James Choi in The .Plan: A Quasi-Blog on 2011-05-27 01:08:00
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Jose Gimenez-Nadal & Almudena Sevilla-Sanz, 2011. "The Time-Crunch Paradox," Social Indicators Research, Springer, vol. 102(2), pages 181-196, June.
  2. Stefan Mann, 2007. "Comparing Interpersonal Comparisons in Utility Theory and Happiness Research," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 29-42, January.
  3. Aleksander Berentsen & Guillaume Rocheteau, . "On the Friedman Rule in Search Models with Divisible Money," IEW - Working Papers 155, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
  4. Böckerman, Petri & Ilmakunnas, Pekka & Johansson, Edvard, 2011. "Job security and employee well-being: Evidence from matched survey and register data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 547-554, August.
  5. Petri Böckerman & Pekka Ilmakunnas, 2005. "Do Job Disamenities Raise Wages or Ruin Job Satisfaction?," Labor and Demography 0501001, EconWPA.
  6. Ambrey, Christopher L. & Fleming, Christopher M., 2012. "Public greenspace and life satisfaction in urban Australia," 2012 Conference (56th), February 7-10, 2012, Freemantle, Australia 124302, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
  7. Bodo Knoll & Hans Pitlik & Martin Rode, 2012. "A Note on the Impact of Economic Regulation on Life Satisfaction," WIFO Working Papers 441, WIFO.
  8. Aleksander Berentsen & Esther Brügger & Simon Lörtscher, 2003. "On Cheating and Whistle-Blowing," Diskussionsschriften dp0302, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
  9. John Knight & Ramani Gunatilaka, 2007. "Great Expectations? The Subjective Well-Being of Rural-Urban Migrants in China," Economics Series Working Papers 322, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
  10. van Ommeren, Jos N. & van der Straaten, J. Willemijn, 2008. "The effect of search imperfections on commuting behaviour: Evidence from employed and self-employed workers," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 127-147, March.
  11. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2004. "Economic Consequences of Mispredicting Utility," CREMA Working Paper Series 2005-04, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
  12. Darren Scott & Kay Axhausen, 2006. "Household Mobility Tool Ownership: Modeling Interactions between Cars and Season Tickets," Transportation, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 311-328, 07.
  13. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, . "Testing Theories of Happiness," IEW - Working Papers 147, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
  14. Rainald Borck, 2005. "Social Agglomeration Externalities," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 505, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
  15. Alexander Ebertz, 2009. "The Determinants of Joint Residential and Job Location Choices: A Mixed Logit Approach," Ifo Working Paper Series Ifo Working Paper Nr. 82, Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
  16. Daniel J. Benjamin & Ori Heffetz & Miles S. Kimball & Alex Rees-Jones, 2010. "Do People Seek to Maximize Happiness? Evidence from New Surveys," NBER Working Papers 16489, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  17. Andrew E. Clark, 2004. "What makes a good job? Evidence from OECD countries," DELTA Working Papers 2004-28, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:151

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Marita Kieser).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.