Excess Commuting in the US: Differences between the Self-Employed and Employees

José Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal (), José Alberto Molina and Jorge Velilla ()
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José Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal: University of Zaragoza
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Jose Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal ()

No 9425, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new spatial framework to model excess commuting of workers and we show empirical differences between the self-employed and employees in the US. In a theoretical framework where self-employed workers minimize their commuting time, employees do not minimize their commuting time because they lack full information, and thus the difference between the time devoted to commuting by self-employed workers and employees is modeled as wasteful commuting (i.e., excess commuting). We first formulate a microeconomic framework for commuting by modeling the location of individuals in urban cores surrounded by rings. Using the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003-2013, our empirical results show that employees spend twelve more minutes per day, or forty percent of the average commuting time, compared to their self-employed counterparts. This is consistent with our "diana" model, in that location is an important factor.

Keywords: excess commuting; urban cores; American Time Use Survey; self-employed workers; employees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J64 R20 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-geo, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Published - published as "The commuting behavior of workers in the United States: differences between the employed and the self-employed" in: Journal of Transport Geography, 2018, 66, 19-29

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