Travel,Activities,and Money

Abstract

Although microeconomic models of the trade-off between time and money expenditures exist, these have been applied primarily in theoretical or simplified empirical settings. Yet, studying how time and money are traded off against each other in the context of daily activity patterns is crucial because of relationships that exist between activities and between various dimensions of one activity and because of increasing importance of the quality of places and facilities. To facilitate the analysis of expenditures, a theoretical framework was developed; it suggests that money can be invested directly into activities and indirectly into the facilities that support the activities (dwellings, transport, telecommunication devices). Focusing on the trade-off between various types of fixed expenditures (related to facilities) and daily expenditures, an exploratory analysis was carried out by using a 1996 Dutch data set. The analysis revealed that expenditure decisions are influenced by such factors as education level, age, frequency of social interactions, nationality, presence of children, and monthly income. In addition, a substitution effect is found between daily expenditures and expenditures to the dwelling, transport, and telecommunication.