Congestion plays a central role in urban and transportation economics. Existing estimates of congestion costs rely on stated or revealed preferences studies. We explore a complementary measure of congestion costs based on self-reported happiness. Exploiting quasi-random variation in daily congestion in Beijing that arises because of superstitions about the number four, we estimate a strong effect of daily congestion on self-reported happiness. When benchmarking this effect against the relationship between income and self-reported happiness we compute implied congestion costs that are several times larger than conventional estimates. Several factors, including the value of reliability and externalities on non-travelers, can reconcile our alternative estimates with the existing literature
Superstitions, Street Traffic, and Subjective Well-Being
NBER working paper series ; no. w21551
2015
1 Online-Ressource
Campusweiter Zugriff (Universität Hannover) - Vervielfältigungen (z.B. Kopien, Downloads) sind nur von einzelnen Kapiteln oder Seiten und nur zum eigenen wissenschaftlichen Gebrauch erlaubt. Keine Weitergabe an Dritte. Kein systematisches Downloaden durch Robots.
Book
Electronic Resource
English
Travel Time and Subjective Well-Being
Online Contents | 2013
|Travel Time and Subjective Well-Being
Transportation Research Record | 2013
|Traditions and superstitions regarding public works
Engineering Index Backfile | 1897
|Subjective well-being and travel: retrospect and prospect
Online Contents | 2018
|