The Commuting Distribution

In this paper we analyse the commuting distribution from a job search perspective. We have examined under which conditions the commuting distribution is unimodal which is one of the stylised facts of commuting. It appears that a necessary condition is that space is two-dimensional. Furthermore, one of the following ingredients is sufficient: on-the-job mobility, spatially-differentiated search or heterogeneity ofjobs. Residential mobility does not appear to explain the shape of the commuting density function as we observe it.