Commuting and Transit
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (CST)
- Chair: Caitlin Gorback, University of Texas-Austin
The Political Economy of Congestion Pricing: Evidence from London Voters
Abstract
Why do voters often oppose efficient policies? I study this question through the lens of congestion pricing. I consider the hypothesis that voters on average oppose congestion pricing because they underestimate the effect of the policy on inducing drivers to switch to public transit. I leverage survey data from London before the introduction of its congestion charging scheme to recover structural estimates of voters' ex ante policy preferences. I show that while nearly 60 percent of commuters in London were predicted to benefit from the congestion pricing scheme, only 40 percent of voters supported it. I find strong evidence that voters held inaccurate expectations of the welfare effects of congestion pricing. However, I also find that education significantly increased the accuracy of voters' beliefs about the policy, which lends support to the idea that comprehension of the policy's equilibrium effects was key to creating support for the policy.Transit Infrastructure, Couples' Commuting Choices, and Household Wage Structure
Abstract
Urbanization brings forth advantages and challenges, some specific to women. With the global urban population expected to increase by 2.5 billion by 2050, governments worldwide have invested heavily in infrastructure projects. To understand how these investments impact households, and women in particular, one must consider married households. In such households, labor supply and commuting decisions are made jointly. Therefore, improving commute times can affect one partner's commuting patterns by impacting both their prospects (direct channel) and those of their spouse (indirect channel). I set up a quantitative model featuring single and married households and use it to study the introduction of new transit infrastructure in Lima, Peru. In the counterfactual analysis, I find that in areas that experienced the largest reductions in commuting times, the gender gap in real earnings among married households decreased by 12\%. However, the gap remained unchanged among single households. The gap decreased through the direct channel but increased through the indirect channel.Is It Expensive to Be Poor? Evidence from the Public Transport in New York City
Abstract
Exploiting details of transit card data during the period 2013-2015, we provide evidence that a large number of commuters on the New York City public transit system purchase a weekly (7-day) unlimited-ride transit pass every week and continue this purchase pattern for more than 11 months. As a monthly (30-day) pass costs roughly the same as three and a half weekly passes, these commuters waste a lot of money on transit fares than they would have with monthly passes while receiving the same level and quality of transit services. These repeated weekly pass commuters predominately live in low-income neighborhoods, which points to the importance of liquidity constraint. Low-income commuters may be unable to spend a large amount at one time for a monthly fare, opting instead to buy weekly fares that are cheaper in the short-term but much costlier in the long-term. Alternative mechanisms such as time inconsistency and job instability alone are unlikely to explain the observed behavior of recurring weekly pass commuters. These commuters would benefit significantly from a monthly fare cap.Discussant(s)
Rhiannon Jerch
,
Temple University
Léa Bou Sleiman
,
NBER
Yichen Su
,
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
David Phillips
,
University of Notre Dame
JEL Classifications
- R4 - Transportation Economics