Abstract
The paper examines commuting patterns in Israel within the gravity model framework. We find that commuting patterns of Israeli employees are close to their European and American counterparts: commuting rates are higher among younger and more highly educated employees, and men commute more than women. As is expected, we find that individuals more actively engage in commuting as the distance between regions decreases. Other things being equal, increasing the distance between origin and destination by 10 percent is associated with a 16 percent drop in commuting flow. Additionally, commuting flows are 3.4 times greater between the pairs of neighboring sub-districts. Moreover, higher wages and higher employment density (as measured by total employed to total labor force in the region) attract commuters. We also find that commuting is not necessarily directed towards the regions with the lowest unemployment.