Full Citation
Title: The Impact of Telecommuting on the Journey to Work: A Two-Sample Instrumental Variables Approach
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2008
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Abstract: Telecommuting is viewed as a public policy tool for reducing congestion and air pollution, but it may not be as effective as people think if workers who can telecommute choose to live (work) farther from their workplaces (homes) than non-telecommuters. Existing studies have not been able to fully address this issue because they all assume telecommuting is exogenous to commuting behavior. This study assembles information on telecommuting from the work schedule supplement to the May 2001 Current Population Survey (CPS) and information on commuting behavior from the 2000 Census 5% Public Use Micro-data Series (PUMS) and applies a two-sample instrumental variables technique to examining the impact of telecommuting on commute length and travel mode. I use the percent of workers who use the Internet when working at home in a person's two-digit occupation and MSA of the same size to instrument for telecommuting. The results show that telecommuting increases a married female worker's one-way commute time by 9-12 minutes. The impact on commute mode choice is positive and statistically insignificant.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Jiang, Yi
Publisher: University of Maryland
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Other
Countries: United States