IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa10p816.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why are the commuting distances of power couples so short? An analysis of the location preferences of households

Author

Listed:
  • Willemijn Van Der Straaten
  • Jan Rouwendal

Abstract

Couples of which both spouses are highly educated (so called 'power couples') face a more complex work-home relation than singles or single-earner households. However, the commuting time of power couples is relatively short. In this paper we analyze whether these power couples use their relatively large purchasing power to outbid other households from locations that are especially attractive to them, as is predicted by household location theory. Using a residential sorting model we estimate a residential location choice model in which households choose their residential location on the basis of natural and urban amenities as well as the accessibility of jobs. The model used allows for heterogeneity between households in the preferences of the characteristics of their residential location. The results show that an average household would like to live close to a large labour market, close to a railway station, in regions with a high regional wage, and have urban facilities. Households are indifferent with respect to the distance to the nearest highway slip road and the amount of nature. Power couples are willing to pay more than the average household in order to be located close to large labour markets and to have good urban facilities in their residential location. The results show that the location choice is not simply more connected with only the working place. Although accessibility to the workplace is still important, the amenities, that the location offers are also regarded as important; especially for power couples. And it explains why these couples are more likely to live in large urban areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Willemijn Van Der Straaten & Jan Rouwendal, 2011. "Why are the commuting distances of power couples so short? An analysis of the location preferences of households," ERSA conference papers ersa10p816, European Regional Science Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p816
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa10/ERSA2010finalpaper816.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank Corvers & Maud Hensen & Dion Bongaerts, 2009. "Delimitation and Coherence of Functional and Administrative Regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 19-31.
    2. Patrick Bayer & Robert McMillan & Kim Rueben, 2004. "Residential Segregation in General Equilibrium," Working Papers 885, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    3. Jan Rouwendal & Piet Rietveld, 1994. "Changes in Commuting Distances of Dutch Households," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 31(9), pages 1545-1557, November.
    4. Guler, Bulent & Guvenen, Fatih & Violante, Giovanni L., 2012. "Joint-search theory: New opportunities and new frictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 352-369.
    5. Wouter Vermeulen & Jan Rouwendal, 2007. "Housing supply in the Netherlands," CPB Discussion Paper 87, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    6. Mills, Edwin S. & Nijkamp, Peter, 1987. "Advances in urban economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 17, pages 703-714, Elsevier.
    7. Steven T. Berry, 1994. "Estimating Discrete-Choice Models of Product Differentiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 25(2), pages 242-262, Summer.
    8. Dora L. Costa & Matthew E. Kahn, 2000. "Power Couples: Changes in the Locational Choice of the College Educated, 1940–1990," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1287-1315.
    9. Janice Fanning Madden, 1981. "Why Women Work Closer to Home," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 18(2), pages 181-194, June.
    10. McGoldrick, KimMarie & Robst, John, 1996. "Gender Differences in Overeducation: A Test of the Theory of Differential Overqualification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 280-284, May.
    11. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    12. Stefan P.T. Groot & Henri L.F. Groot & Martijn J. Smit, 2014. "Regional Wage Differences In The Netherlands: Micro Evidence On Agglomeration Externalities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(3), pages 503-523, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Patrick Bayer & Robert McMillan & Kim Rueben, 2004. "An Equilibrium Model of Sorting in an Urban Housing Market," NBER Working Papers 10865, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Mette Deding & Trine Filges & Jos Van Ommeren, 2009. "Spatial Mobility And Commuting: The Case Of Two‐Earner Households," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 113-147, February.
    3. Yannis M. Ioannides, 2010. "Neighborhood Effects and Housing," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0747, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    4. Patrick Bajari & Matthew E. Kahn, 2005. "Estimating Housing Demand With an Application to Explaining Racial Segregation in Cities," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 20-33, January.
    5. Donna, Javier D. & Pereira, Pedro & Trindade, Andre & Yoshida, Renan C., 2020. "Direct-to-Consumer Sales by Manufacturers and Bargaining," MPRA Paper 105773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Jeremy T. Fox, 2010. "Estimating the Employer Switching Costs and Wage Responses of Forward-Looking Engineers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 357-412, April.
    7. Haerang Park, 2021. "Testing for Pricing Behavior in the Mortgage Loan Market," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 270-293, September.
    8. Tovar, Jorge, 2012. "Consumers’ Welfare and Trade Liberalization: Evidence from the Car Industry in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 808-820.
    9. Patrick Bajari & Jeremy Fox & Stephen Ryan, 2008. "Evaluating wireless carrier consolidation using semiparametric demand estimation," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 299-338, December.
    10. Pereira, Pedro & Ribeiro, Tiago, 2011. "The impact on broadband access to the Internet of the dual ownership of telephone and cable networks," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 283-293, March.
    11. Julie Holland Mortimer, 2007. "Price Discrimination, Copyright Law, and Technological Innovation: Evidence from the Introduction of DVDs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1307-1350.
    12. Patrick Bayer & Fernando Ferreira & Robert McMillan, 2007. "A Unified Framework for Measuring Preferences for Schools and Neighborhoods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(4), pages 588-638, August.
    13. Redding, Stephen J. & Weinstein, David E., 2016. "A unified approach to estimating demand and welfare," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67681, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Pietro Tebaldi, 2015. "Estimating Equilibrium in Health Insurance Exchanges: Analysis of the Californian Market under the ACA," Discussion Papers 15-012, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    15. Allais, Olivier & Etilé, Fabrice & Lecocq, Sébastien, 2015. "Mandatory labels, taxes and market forces: An empirical evaluation of fat policies," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 27-44.
    16. Nathan H. Miller, 2008. "Competition When Consumers Value Firm Scope," EAG Discussions Papers 200807, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    17. Freyberger, Joachim, 2015. "Asymptotic theory for differentiated products demand models with many markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 185(1), pages 162-181.
    18. Aamir Rafique Hashmi & Johannes Van Biesebroeck, 2016. "The Relationship between Market Structure and Innovation in Industry Equilibrium: A Case Study of the Global Automobile Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 192-208, March.
    19. Gandal, Neil, 2001. "The dynamics of competition in the internet search engine market," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(7), pages 1103-1117, July.
    20. Ali Hortaçsu & Olivia R. Natan & Hayden Parsley & Timothy Schwieg & Kevin R. Williams, 2021. "Organizational Structure and Pricing: Evidence from a Large U.S. Airline," NBER Working Papers 29508, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa10p816. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gunther Maier (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ersa.org .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.