Analytical Framework for Family Interactions in Transport and Energy policies – AFFINITE

AFFINITE aims at analysing and measuring the interactions between individuals, families, stakeholders and the State in the context of environmental and sanitation policies. Environmental objectives are understood in a broad sense: including short term COVID-19 concerns (teleworking, avoiding congestion in public transport), local air pollution (particles, NOx, ozone) as well as greenhouse gas emissions at the level of the household and passenger transport. Environmental policies are also very broadly defined as policies that affect the short run via modal choice (public transport, soft modes or car), impact the type of energy used for cars (Electric versus fossil) and affect the energy use for heating.
The longer term effects are also taken on board via the relocation of households in relation to workplace, the adaptation of buildings to integrate renewable energy opportunities and the supply of sustainable housing, and the LUTI model.
There is a special emphasis on the urban environment as 80% of French households live in cities.
What distinguishes this research proposal from other assessments of public policies is the integration of the intra household decision-making process. The intra household decision process involves the study of matching on the marriage as well as the collective bargaining process between spouses, that will determine choice of residence, housing quality, jobs and commuting mode.
This research set-up has two advantages: first it allows a more refined assessment of public policies, second it allows to unravel the intra- household welfare distribution effects. The latter are important to discuss gender and intergenerational distribution effects.
The final objective is to construct a tool to assess the impact of various environmental and health policies that want to affect: the reduction in the number of trips, a smart modal choice, use of cleaner vehicles and better location of economic activities and more sustainable housing. We process in three steps.
First we construct an integrated framework to address consistently individual and household decision trees. This includes job and residential locations as well as the commuting modes. Also the heterogeneity of the local real estate markets is modelled in this first step as the supply of housing is a crucial element of an urban general equilibrium model.
Second we estimate a model using Ile-de-France, partly new, disaggregate / aggregate data for short run and long run choice behaviour within the family as regards the job and residence choice, modal choice as well as the behaviour of the real estate sector with respect to the supply of dwellings.
In the third step, we complement the empirically validated model elements with other literature inputs to allow a comprehensive assessment of the welfare, environmental and energy impacts of urban and transport policies. In this assessment, decisions makers adjust their behavior in the short run (mode choice), medium run (residential and job choices, energy consumption of houses) and long run (real estate investment and automobile ownership). Our comprehensive setting will therefore allow to study not only the aggregated impacts of congestion, pollution, health risks and energy but will also demonstrate the within family impacts of public policies on equity and welfare.
This ambitious project is proposed by a high potential consortium that has an excellent research record in the field of intra-family decision making, in the empirical analysis of transport and land use decisions as well as in the construction of land use simulation models.