Endogenous scheduling preferences and gongestion

Abstract

The location of activities in time is an under-researched question throughout economics. We present a dynamic model of commuting under urban congestion in which workers care about leisure and consumption. Implicit preferences for the timing of the commute form endogenously due to temporal agglomeration economies at home and work. Equilibrium exists uniquely and is indistinguishable from that of a generalized version of the classical Vickrey bottleneck model, based on exogenous trip-timing preferences; but optimal policies cannot be predicted correctly from the classical model. Tolling may make travelers better off, even without considering the use of revenues.