IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/46548.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information Technology and Transportation: Substitutes or Complements?

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver, Atara Stephanie

Abstract

The increased availability and prevalence of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) provides opportunities to use such products as substitutes for transportation. Common examples of this substitution are telecommuting, video conferences, and online classes. However, despite the intuitive appeal of a substitution relationship existing between ICT and transportation, prior research has indicated that the relationship between ICT and transportation is quite complex; at times ICT substitutes for travel and at other times ICT and travel complement each other. Therefore, using a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) model and data from the US Consumer Expenditure Survey and the Consumer Price Index, I analyzed the effect of ICT expenditures on transportation demand. The analysis indicates that ICT may serve as a substitute for air travel, but primarily serves as a complement for private transportation. Overall the data supports a complementary relationship between ICT and transportation, which indicates that an increase in technology may increase rather than decrease the negative externalities associated with transportation.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver, Atara Stephanie, 2013. "Information Technology and Transportation: Substitutes or Complements?," MPRA Paper 46548, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:46548
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/46548/1/MPRA_paper_46548.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/52896/10/MPRA_paper_52896.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sangho Choo & Taihyeong Lee & Patricia L. Mokhtarian, 2007. "Relationships Between US Consumer Expenditures on Communications and Transportation Using Almost Ideal Demand System Modeling: 1984--2002," Transportation Planning and Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(5), pages 431-453, July.
    2. Douglas Fisher & Adrian R. Fleissig & Apostolos Serletis, 2006. "An Empirical Comparison of Flexible Demand System Functional Forms," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Money And The Economy, chapter 13, pages 247-277, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Dhar, Tirtha Pratim & Chavas, Jean-Paul & Gould, Brian W., 2002. "An Empirical Assessment of Endogeneity Issues In Demand Analysis for Differentiated Products," Research Reports 25227, University of Connecticut, Food Marketing Policy Center.
    4. Shenggen Fan & Eric J. Wailes & Gail L. Cramer, 1995. "Household Demand in Rural China: A Two-Stage LES-AIDS Model," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 77(1), pages 54-62.
    5. Donggen Wang & Fion Law, 2007. "Impacts of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on time use and travel behavior: a structural equations analysis," Transportation, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 513-527, July.
    6. Patricia Mokhtarian & Ilan Salomon & Susan Handy, 2006. "The Impacts of Ict on leisure Activities and Travel: A Conceptual Exploration," Transportation, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 263-289, May.
    7. William A. Barnett, 2000. "New Indices of Money Supply and the Flexible Laurent Demand System," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: The Theory of Monetary Aggregation, pages 325-359, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    8. Brian W. Gould, 2003. "An Empirical Assessment of Endogeneity Issues in Demand Analysis for Differentiated Products," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(3), pages 605-617.
    9. Gallant, A. Ronald, 1981. "On the bias in flexible functional forms and an essentially unbiased form : The fourier flexible form," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 211-245, February.
    10. Christensen, Laurits R & Jorgenson, Dale W & Lau, Lawrence J, 1975. "Transcendental Logarithmic Utility Functions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 367-383, June.
    11. Brian P. Poi, 2012. "Easy demand-system estimation with quaids," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 12(3), pages 433-446, September.
    12. Donald W. Jones, Paul N. Leiby and Inja K. Paik, 2004. "Oil Price Shocks and the Macroeconomy: What Has Been Learned Since 1996," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 1-32.
    13. Muellbauer, John, 1976. "Community Preferences and the Representative Consumer," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(5), pages 979-999, September.
    14. David Banister & Dominic Stead, 2004. "Impact of information and communications technology on transport," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 611-632, January.
    15. Cooper, Russel J & McLaren, Keith R, 1996. "A System of Demand Equations Satisfying Effectively Global Regularity Conditions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(2), pages 359-364, May.
    16. Ray, Ranjan, 1983. "Measuring the costs of children : An alternative approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 89-102, October.
    17. James Banks & Richard Blundell & Arthur Lewbel, 1997. "Quadratic Engel Curves And Consumer Demand," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 527-539, November.
    18. Blundell, Richard & Pashardes, Panos & Weber, Guglielmo, 1993. "What Do We Learn About Consumer Demand Patterns from Micro Data?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 570-597, June.
    19. Diewert, W E, 1971. "An Application of the Shephard Duality Theorem: A Generalized Leontief Production Function," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(3), pages 481-507, May-June.
    20. Deakin, Elizabeth, 2001. "Sustainable Development & Sustainable Transportation: Strategies for Economic Prosperity, Environmental Quality, and Equity," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt8mf1z8mh, University of California Transportation Center.
    21. Deaton, Angus S & Muellbauer, John, 1980. "An Almost Ideal Demand System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 312-326, 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. William Barnett & Ousmane Seck, 2006. "Rotterdam vs Almost Ideal Models: Will the Best Demand Specification Please Stand Up?," WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS 200605, University of Kansas, Department of Economics.
    2. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Consumer preferences and demand systems," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 210-224, December.
    3. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "Measuring Consumer Preferences and Estimating Demand Systems," MPRA Paper 12318, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. William A. Barnett & Ousmane Seck, 2008. "Rotterdam model versus almost ideal demand system: will the best specification please stand up?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(6), pages 795-824.
    5. Douglas Fisher & Adrian R. Fleissig & Apostolos Serletis, 2006. "An Empirical Comparison of Flexible Demand System Functional Forms," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Money And The Economy, chapter 13, pages 247-277, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Adrian R. Fleissig, 2016. "Changing Trends in U.S. Alcohol Demand," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 44(3), pages 263-276, September.
    7. Serletis, Apostolos & Xu, Libo, 2020. "Functional monetary aggregates, monetary policy, and business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    8. Giorgio Fagiolo, 2001. "Engel Curves Specification in an Artificial Model of Consumption Dynamics with Socially Evolving Preferences," LEM Papers Series 2001/16, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    9. Apostolos Serletis & Libo Xu, 2020. "Demand systems with heteroscedastic disturbances," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1913-1921, April.
    10. Jin, Man, 2018. "Measuring substitution in China's monetary-assets demand system," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 117-132.
    11. Cupák, Andrej & Pokrivčák, Ján & Rizov, Marian, 2015. "Food Demand and Consumption Patterns in the New EU Member States: The Case of Slovakia," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 63(4), pages 339-358.
    12. De Agostini, Paola, 2014. "The effect of food prices and household income on the British diet," ISER Working Paper Series 2014-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    13. Korir, Lilian & Rizov, Marian & Ruto, Eric, 2020. "Food security in Kenya: Insights from a household food demand model," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 92, pages 99-108.
    14. Braha, Kushtrim & Cupak, Andrej & Qineti, Artan & Pokrivcak, Jan, 2018. "Food Demand System in Transition Economies: Evidence from Kosovo," 162nd Seminar, April 26-27, 2018, Budapest, Hungary 272050, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Thomas, Alastair, 2019. "Who Would Win from a Multi-rate GST in New Zealand: Evidence from a QUAIDS Model," Working Paper Series 8127, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    16. Barnett, William A. & Serletis, Apostolos, 2008. "The Differential Approach to Demand Analysis and the Rotterdam Model," MPRA Paper 12319, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Regmi, Madhav & Featherstone, Allen M., 2017. "Farm Households Consumption Heterogeneity And Rural Business Dynamics," 2017 Annual Meeting, February 4-7, 2017, Mobile, Alabama 252755, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    18. Peter Tóth & Andrej Cupák & Marian Rizov, 2021. "Measuring the efficiency of VAT reforms: a demand system simulation approach," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(3), pages 1218-1243.
    19. Geweke, John, 2012. "Nonparametric Bayesian modelling of monotone preferences for discrete choice experiments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 171(2), pages 185-204.
    20. McAleer, Michael & Medeiros, Marcelo C. & Slottje, Daniel, 2008. "A neural network demand system with heteroskedastic errors," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 359-371, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Transportation; Consumer Expenditures; Information Technology;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • R22 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Other Demand
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

    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:pra:mprapa:46548. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.