The Demand for Mobility: Evidence from an Experiment with Uber Riders

Peter Christensen and Adam Osman

No 31330, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Optimal transportation policies depend on demand elasticities that interact across modes and vary across the population, but understanding how and why these elasticities vary has been an empirical challenge. Using an experiment with Uber in Egypt, we randomly assign large price discounts for transport services over a 3 month period to examine: (1) the demand for ride-hailing services, (2) the demand for total mobility (km/week), and (3) its contributions to external costs (e.g. congestion). A 50% discount more than quadruples Uber usage and induces an increase of nearly 49% in total mobility. These effects are stronger for women, who are less mobile at baseline and perceive public transit as unsafe. Technology-induced reductions in the price of ride-hailing services could generate substantial benefits to users (5.2% of GDP) that would be accompanied by considerable increases in external costs (0.6% of GDP), with benefits accruing to the most affluent and costs being borne by the entire population.

JEL-codes: Q5 R4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-pay, nep-tre and nep-ure
Note: EEE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31330.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Demand for Mobility: Evidence from an Experiment with Uber Riders (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31330

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31330

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().