IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10981.html

Do Commuting Subsidies Drive Workers to Better Firms?

Author

Listed:
  • David R. Agrawal
  • Elke J. Jahn
  • Eckhard Janeba

Abstract

An unappreciated potential benefit of commuting subsidies is that they can expand the choice set of feasible job opportunities in a way that facilitates a better job match quality. Variations in wages and initial commuting distances, combined with major reforms of the commuting subsidy formula in Germany, generate worker-specific variation in commuting subsidy changes. We study the effect of changes in these subsidies on a worker’s position in the wage distribution. Increases in the generosity of commuting subsidies induce workers to switch to higher-paying jobs with longer commutes. Although increases in commuting subsidies generally induce workers to switch to employers that pay higher wages, commuting subsidies also enhance positive assortativity in the labor market by better matching high-ability workers to higher-productivity plants. Greater assortativity induced by commuting subsidies corresponds to greater earnings inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • David R. Agrawal & Elke J. Jahn & Eckhard Janeba, 2024. "Do Commuting Subsidies Drive Workers to Better Firms?," CESifo Working Paper Series 10981, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10981
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10981.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre‐Philippe Combes & Gilles Duranton & Laurent Gobillon & Diego Puga & Sébastien Roux, 2012. "The Productivity Advantages of Large Cities: Distinguishing Agglomeration From Firm Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2543-2594, November.
    2. repec:oup:qjecon:v:136:y:2021:i:1:p:381-426. is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Manning, Alan, 2003. "The real thin theory: monopsony in modern labour markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 105-131, April.
    4. repec:iab:iabjlr:v:54:p:art.10 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Daniel Fackler & Steffen Mueller & Jens Stegmaier, 2021. "Explaining Wage Losses After Job Displacement: Employer Size and Lost Firm Wage Premiums," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(5), pages 2695-2736.
    6. Weber, Caroline E., 2014. "Toward obtaining a consistent estimate of the elasticity of taxable income using difference-in-differences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 90-103.
    7. Peri, Giovanni & Sparber, Chad, 2011. "Assessing inherent model bias: An application to native displacement in response to immigration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 82-91, January.
    8. Dauth, Wolfgang & Haller, Peter, 2020. "Is there loss aversion in the trade-off between wages and commuting distances?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Stephan Huber & Christoph Rust, 2016. "Calculate travel time and distance with OpenStreetMap data using the Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM)," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 16(2), pages 416-423, June.
    10. Torres, Sónia & Portugal, Pedro & Addison, John T. & Guimarães, Paulo, 2018. "The sources of wage variation and the direction of assortative matching: Evidence from a three-way high-dimensional fixed effects regression model," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 47-60.
    11. Wolfgang Dauth & Johann Eppelsheimer, 2020. "Preparing the sample of integrated labour market biographies (SIAB) for scientific analysis: a guide," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 54(1), pages 1-14, December.
    12. Schmutte, Ian M., 2014. "Free to Move? A Network Analytic Approach for Learning the Limits to Job Mobility," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 49-61.
    13. Emmanuel Saez & Joel Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 3-50, March.
    14. Boris Hirsch & Elke J. Jahn, 2015. "Is There Monopsonistic Discrimination against Immigrants?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(3), pages 501-528, May.
    15. repec:iab:iabjlr:v:54:i:1:p:art.10 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vidar Christiansen & Odd E. Nygård, 2024. "Tax Treatment of Commuter Cost," CESifo Working Paper Series 11080, CESifo.
    2. De Borger, Bruno & Mulalic, Ismir & Rouwendal, Jan, 2025. "Productivity and wage effects of an exogenous improvement in transport infrastructure: Accessibility and the Great Belt Bridge," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    3. Mateus Rodrigues & Daniel Da Mata & Vitor Possebom, 2024. "Free Public Transport: More Jobs without Environmental Damage?," Papers 2410.06037, arXiv.org.
    4. David Card & Jesse Rothstein & Moises Yi, 2024. "Reassessing the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 114, pages 221-225, May.

    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. Duan, Yige & Jost, Oskar & Jost, Ramona, 2022. "Beyond Lost Earnings: The Long-Term Impact of Job Displacement on Workers’ Commuting Behavior," IAB-Discussion Paper 202215, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    2. Braunschweig, Luisa & Dauth, Wolfgang & Roth, Duncan, 2024. "Job Mobility and Assortative Matching," IAB-Discussion Paper 202411, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    3. Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & Héctor Zárate-Solano & Andrés Camilo Gómez-Molina, 2018. "Elasticidad del ingreso corporativo gravable en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 1046, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    4. Jordy Meekes & Wolter H. J. Hassink, 2023. "Endogenous local labour markets, regional aggregation and agglomeration economies," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(1), pages 13-25, January.
    5. Neryvia Pillay, 2021. "Taxpayer responsiveness to taxation: Evidence from bunching at kink points of the South African income tax schedule," ERSA Working Paper Series, Economic Research Southern Africa, vol. 0.
    6. Nicole Bosch & Henk-Wim de Boer, 2017. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income for the Self-Employed: Heterogeneity across Reforms and Income Levels," CPB Discussion Paper 354.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    7. Miguel Almunia & David Lopez-Rodriguez, 2019. "The elasticity of taxable income in Spain: 1999–2014," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 281-320, November.
    8. Blomquist, Sören & Simula, Laurent, 2019. "Marginal deadweight loss when the income tax is nonlinear," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 211(1), pages 47-60.
    9. Doerrenberg, Philipp & Peichl, Andreas & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2017. "The elasticity of taxable income in the presence of deduction possibilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 41-55.
    10. Alisa Tazhitdinova, 2022. "Increasing Hours Worked: Moonlighting Responses to a Large Tax Reform," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 473-500, February.
    11. Kosonen, Tuomas & Matikka, Tuomas, 2020. "Discrete Labor Supply: Empirical Evidence and Implications," Working Papers 132, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    12. Kristoffer Berg & Thor O. Thoresen, 2020. "Problematic response margins in the estimation of the elasticity of taxable income," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(3), pages 721-752, June.
    13. Jongen, Egbert L. W. & Stoel, Maaike, 2019. "The Elasticity of Taxable Labour Income in the Netherlands," IZA Discussion Papers 12090, IZA Network @ LISER.
    14. Varjonen-Ollus, Reetta, 2025. "Behavioural Effects of a Top Marginal Income Tax Rate Increase," Working Papers 180, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    15. Martinez, Isabel Z., 2016. "Beggar-Thy-Neighbour Tax Cuts: Mobility after a Local Income and Wealth Tax Reform in Switzerland," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145643, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    16. Matikka, Tuomas, 2014. "Taxable Income Elasticity and the Anatomy of Behavioral Response: Evidence from Finland," Working Papers 55, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Doerrenberg, Philipp & Peichl, Andreas & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2014. "Sufficient Statistic or Not? The Elasticity of Taxable Income in the Presence of Deduction Possibilities," IZA Discussion Papers 8554, IZA Network @ LISER.
    18. Roberto Iacono & Bard Smedsvik, 2023. "Behavioral responses to wealth taxation: evidence from a Norwegian reform," Working Papers halshs-04423923, HAL.
    19. Emmanuel Saez, 2017. "Taxing the Rich More: Preliminary Evidence from the 2013 Tax Increase," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 71-120.
    20. Masayoshi Hayashi, 2021. "Transfer Benefits, Implicit Taxes, and the Earnings of Welfare Recipients: Evidence from Public Assistance Programs in Japan," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1164, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • R48 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government Pricing and Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_10981. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.