The Impact of Public Transport on US Metropolitan Wage Inequality

Abstract

This article presents a wage inequality analysis for 158 large US metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). The analysis is concerned with whether public transport has a detectable influence on 1990 levels of wage equality. Because public transport systems are generally designed to link residences with employment locations, higher levels of service provision, all other factors being equal, should be associated with higher employment rates and more uniform distributions of earnings. Few analyses, however, have attempted to evaluate public policies that affect wage distributions. The results of this research provide a macroscopic view of the effectiveness of urban transport investments with respect to urban wage inequality.