The Economics of Urban Mobility

Abstract

Cities offer immense potential for economic growth and improved livelihoods; however, the realization of these benefits hinges critically on efficient transportation and mobility. This dissertation includes three chapters that use a combination of natural experiments and large-scale randomized controlled trials to study how barriers to physical mobility in urban settings impact the economic outcomes of low-income populations. The first chapter studies how the spatial market segmentation of minibus associations in Johannesburg, South Africa, impacts service provision and commuter mobility. The need for coordination between associations results in inefficiently low and rigid supply of minibuses, leading to large increases in wait times for commuters. The second chapter uses a field experiment to study whether reducing public transit fares improves mobility and socioeconomic outcomes for low-income residents in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Completely subsidizing transit fares leads to mode substitution away from private vehicles and into public transportation, and increases employment for participants that were unemployed at baseline. The third chapter documents a new barrier to urban mobility: lack of exposure. Using a field experiment, we find that workers in Nairobi, Kenya, require a wage premium to work in neighborhoods they are not already familiar with, an effect that disappears after a single visit to the neighborhood. This familiarity premium implies that lack of exposure to parts of a city restricts residents’ access to economic opportunities. Together, these three chapters offer new insights into how the design of urban transport systems shapes economic behavior and outcomes.