Working Paper: NBER ID: w28497
Authors: Yuhei Miyauchi; Kentaro Nakajima; Stephen J. Redding
Abstract: Using smartphone geographical positioning systems (GPS) data for Japan, we show that travel within urban areas frequently occurs along trip chains, involving multiple stops as part of a single journey. Motivated by these empirical findings, we develop a tractable theoretical model of travel itineraries, in which agents choose a set and sequence of locations to visit each day. To overcome the resulting high-dimensionality of the choice set, we develop an approach based on importance sampling. We show that trip chains introduce consumption externalities across locations. We show that these consumption externalities are central to explaining the collapse in foot traffic in downtown areas following the shift to remote working during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Keywords: Spatial Mobility; Consumption Externalities; Urban Economics; COVID-19; Smartphone Data
JEL Codes: R2; R3; R41
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| trip chains (R48) | consumption externalities (D62) |
| consumption externalities (D62) | firm and worker location decisions (R30) |
| trip chains (R48) | firm and worker location decisions (R30) |
| trip chains (R48) | decline in foot traffic (R33) |
| consumption externalities (D62) | decline in foot traffic (R33) |