<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The distance a person is willing to commute has a direct influence on her/his employment opportunities and wage level. It raises a lot of interesting questions, especially whether intra-urban commuting (due to a well-developed transport infrastructure, geographical concentration of job opportunities, etc.) is connected with any wage returns, and how they differ in comparison with those of inter-urban commuting. This article uses three data-sets at national (N1 = 1,884; N2 = 933) and local (N3 = 3,193) levels from the Czech Republic, and different approximations of commuting in order to contribute to the discussion. It provides robust evidence on positive wage returns to both inter-urban and intra-urban commuting, comparable with Western countries. The differences between large national and limited urban labour markets are reflected in functional form: wage returns are linear for intra-urban and non-linear for inter-urban commuting. The article also explores the validity of different measures of commuting time and distance provided by the on-line application Mapy.cz, and suggests that it represents a suitable approximation in the case of missing or limited data.</abstract>

The distance a person is willing to commute has a direct influence on her/his employment opportunities and wage level. It raises a lot of interesting questions, especially whether intra-urban commuting (due to a well-developed transport infrastructure, geographical concentration of job opportunities, etc.) is connected with any wage returns, and how they differ in comparison with those of inter-urban commuting. This article uses three data-sets at national (N1 = 1,884; N2 = 933) and local (N3 = 3,193) levels from the Czech Republic, and different approximations of commuting in order to contribute to the discussion. It provides robust evidence on positive wage returns to both inter-urban and intra-urban commuting, comparable with Western countries. The differences between large national and limited urban labour markets are reflected in functional form: wage returns are linear for intra-urban and non-linear for inter-urban commuting. The article also explores the validity of different measures of commuting time and distance provided by the on-line application Mapy.cz, and suggests that it represents a suitable approximation in the case of missing or limited data.

Commuting pays off: Evidence on wage returns to inter-urban and intra-urban commuting

Moravian Geographical Reports

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The distance a person is willing to commute has a direct influence on her/his employment opportunities and wage level. It raises a lot of interesting...

Commuting pays off: Evidence on wage returns to inter-urban and intra-urban commuting

Published Online: Jul 09, 2020

Page range: 112 - 123

Received: Dec 18, 2019

Accepted: May 25, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/mgr-2020-0009

Keywords
commuting, wage returns, job search, urban environment, transport infrastructure, Czech Republic

© 2020 Jakub Vontroba et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Commuting pays off: Evidence on wage returns to inter-urban and intra-urban commuting

Published Online: Jul 09, 2020

Page range: 112 - 123

Received: Dec 18, 2019

Accepted: May 25, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/mgr-2020-0009

Keywordscommuting, wage returns, job search, urban environment, transport infrastructure, Czech Republic

© 2020 Jakub Vontroba et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
commuting, wage returns, job search, urban environment, transport infrastructure, Czech Republic