This paper explored the relative impacts of commute time on two different measures of subjective well-being (SWB) using Gallup-Healthways survey data. Two different measures of SWB – a comprehensivemeasure of overall well-being and whether people experienced happiness for most of the day yesterday –are analyzed to address different aspects of SWB. The first measure takes a global view of SWBencompassing both experienced and remembered utility, and the second measure looks at SWB asexperienced utility dealing with feelings of happiness. Using a series of regression models, commute timewas found to be significant and negatively related to both the global evaluation of SWB as well as anexperiential feeling of happiness measure of SWB. Because this study uses four years of well-being datain the United States, these results provide robust support that commute time does have a significant rolein determining well-being in this country. The analysis also finds a strong correlation between commutetime and congestion, which suggests policies to effectively reduce congestion can be one method ofimproving SWB for many people at once.
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