Cities and the structure of social interactions: Evidence from mobile phone data

Konstantin Büchel and Maximilian von Ehrlich

Journal of Urban Economics, 2020, vol. 119, issue C

Abstract: The impact of telecommunication technologies on the role of cities depends on whether these technologies and face-to-face interactions are substitutes or complements. We analyze anonymized mobile phone data to examine how distance and population density affect calling behavior. Exploiting an exogenous change in travel times as well as permanent relocations of individuals, we find that distance is highly detrimental to link formation. Mobile phone usage significantly increases with population density even when spatial sorting is accounted for. This effect is most pronounced for local interactions between individuals in the same catchment area. This indicates that face-to-face interactions and mobile phone calls are complementary to each other, so that mobile phone technology may even increase the dividends of density.

Keywords: Social interactions; Mobile phones; Face-to-Face interactions; Cities; Spatial sorting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 D85 R10 R23 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Cities and the Structure of Social Interactions: Evidence from Mobile Phone Data (2018)
Working Paper: Cities and the Structure of Social Interactions: Evidence from Mobile Phone Data (2017)
Working Paper: Cities and the Structure of Social Interactions: Evidence from Mobile Phone Data (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juecon:v:119:y:2020:i:c:s0094119020300474

DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2020.103276

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