European Regional Science Association
|
European Regional Science Association
|
|
|
|
|
The abstract for paper number 250:
Thomas De Graaff, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Piet Rietveld, Free University
Department Of Spatial Economics, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
On the Trade-off between Teleworking and Commuting Time
In the last decade we have witnessed a surge in the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Nowadays, ICT is not only used at work, but an increasing part of the population is also using ICT at home, for example in the form of Internet. The use of ICT at home enables individuals to increase their in-home labor supply, or – in other words – the number of teleworkers. One of the main advantages of teleworking is the decrease in commuting time, which tends to become more costly the higher the individual wage is. This paper focuses on the trade-off between teleworking and commuting time. In order to do so, we develop a microeconomic consumer model. This model assumes different wages rates for in-home and out-of-home labor supply. In the simple version of the model, individuals with a low wage rate supply most of their labor out-of-home, while individuals with a high wage rate tend to work mostly in-home, due to increasing costs of leisure time and thus of commuting costs. The second part of the paper examines the impact of the introduction of ICT and offers the theoretical elasticity between teleworking and commuting time.
Unfortunately full paper has not been submitted.