Stress that Doesn't Pay: The Commuting Paradox

By Alois Stutzer, Bruno S. Frey. Social Science Research Network, 2008

899 citations recorded by the source corpus.

People spend a lot of time commuting and often find it a burden. According to economics, the burden of commuting is chosen when compensated either on the labor or on the housing market so that individuals’ utility is equalized. However, in a direct test of this strong notion of equilibrium, we find that people with longer commuting time report systematically lower subjective well-being. Additional empirical analyses do not find institutional explanations of the empirical results that commuters systematically incur losses. We discuss several possibilities of an extended model of human behavior able to explain this ‘commuting paradox’.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/db3861fa82ce8247657847cb2441cdb057b0f4d0

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Citations in the corpus

Travel Time and Subjective Well-Being (2013, methodology): “For example, in a study using 1985 to 2003 data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, Stutzer and Frey found that commute time has a strong negative impact on SWB (8).”
The relationship between well-being and commuting revisited: Does the choice of methodology matter? (2014, methodology): “Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), Stutzer and Frey (2008) estimate linear FE models in which satisfaction with life overall (measured on a scale from 1 to 10) is specified as a function of commuting time and a set of control variables.”
Activity Spaces, Biographies, Social Networks and their Welfare Gains and Externalities: Some Hypotheses and Empirical Results (2005, neutral): “Stutzer & Frey, 2004 ; or Frey & Stutzer, 2001 ).”
Would You Be Happier If You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion (2006, background): “See (31) for evidence on the misallocation of commuting time and (14) on the hedonic experience of commuting and socializing.”
Does commuting matter to subjective well-being? (2018, methodology): “Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP, 1985–2003), Stutzer and Frey (2008) show that greater commuting times lower self-reported life satisfaction (measured on a scale from 0 to 10).”
Do we really know what makes us happy A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being (2008, background): “Welsch (2002) notes the difficulty of isolating any effect of pollution due to the high negative correlation between income and pollution.”