Sejong's Effects on People's Health: Consequences of a Long Commute

We examine the health impacts of long commute time by exploiting a large-scale placed-based policy in South Korea. The policy relocated public employers in the capital area to disadvantaged cities. However, some public employees kept their residences in the capital area and spend long hours commutin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Asian economic papers 2023-06, Vol.22 (2), p.1-27
Main Authors: Lim, Seulgi, Lee, Soohyung
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cities
Commuting
Health risks
Public health
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Summary:We examine the health impacts of long commute time by exploiting a large-scale placed-based policy in South Korea. The policy relocated public employers in the capital area to disadvantaged cities. However, some public employees kept their residences in the capital area and spend long hours commuting. Using this change, we estimate two-stage least squares models whose results suggest that having a long commute substantially increases usage of medical services, particularly to treat respiratory, circulatory, and endocrine and metabolic diseases. However, we find mixed effects of long commute time on medical checkup outcomes and health-related activities such as exercise.
ISSN:1535-3516
1536-0083
DOI:10.1162/asep_a_00863