Cross-border commuting and consuming: An empirical investigation

Thomas Mathä, Alessandro Porpiglia and Michael Ziegelmeyer

No 201407, MEA discussion paper series from Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy

Abstract: This paper analyses empirically how cross-border consumption varies across product and services categories and across household characteristics. It focuses on the part of crossborder sales that arise due to work-related cross-border crossings; it analyses the crossborder consumption behaviour of cross-border commuter households residing in Belgium, France and Germany and working in Luxembourg. In total, it is estimated that these households spend €925 million per annum in Luxembourg, reflecting about 17% of their gross annual income from Luxembourg and contributing about 10% to total household final consumption expenditure in Luxembourg. Cross-border consumption expenditure is shown to depend on individual and household characteristics, such as total household income, the number of cross-border commuters in the household, distance between home and work, as well as price level (index) differences between Luxembourg and its neighbouring countries. Cross-border commuters take advantage of existing arbitrage opportunities.

JEL-codes: F15 J61 R12 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Cross-border commuting and consuming: an empirical investigation (2017)
Working Paper: Cross-border commuting and consuming: An empirical investigation (2014)
Working Paper: Cross-border commuting and consuming: an empirical investigation (2014)
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