Too Far to Go to Work? Examining the Effect of Changes in Commute Time on Regional Unemployment
Aleš Franc et al.
What the paper says
Commute duration significantly influences decision-making in the labour market, especially for job seekers. This article aims to evaluate the effect of improvements in infrastructure on regional unemployment. Utilizing a unique database comprising commuting time data from all Czech municipalities (n=6241) to their respective regional centres, we identified 1534 changes. Our findings indicate that a one-minute reduction in commuting time to the regional centre is associated with a 0.07 percentage point decrease in the unemployment rate one year later and a 0.19 percentage point decrease after five years. These results suggest that investing in local infrastructure has the potential to mitigate disparities in regional unemployment rates.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.