Commuting, Residence and Workplace Location Attractiveness and Local Public Goods

Being closely tied to today’s working life, commuting is of central interest to geographers, policy makers, transport planners and economists alike. This article analyzes aggregate commuting using various groups of variables. Its special focus is on whether and how the provision of local public goods, such as educational institutions or health care facilities, and local amenities affect commuting decisions on the aggregate level and to what extent commuting can be explained by labor market characteristics at the source and target units. The empirical investigation analyzes aggregate commuting flows between municipalities of an Austrian province using censored regression and count data models.