I am trying to answer this question in a conference paper that will be presented in May 2019 at the 15th World Conference on Transport Research. Happy to discuss about the subject, and also on the specific draft. I can share on the basis of private requests, and to get constructive feedback.
Here is the link: Conference Paper Does income inequality matter for household transport expend...
ABSTRACT: Household expenditure is a point of reference to discuss fundamental social issues of affordability and basic needs in fields such as food, health, housing, energy, and of course transport. Whereas the Engel's Law has long ago predicted a regular drop in relative importance of food as GDP per capita grows, countries show a higher dispersion when it comes to the relevance of other household expenditure items, such as transport. Economic growth and other factors such as urbanization, car ownership and ageing of the population have been usually included as country-level variables that can explain this dispersion. However, income distribution has been scarcely considered. This paper uses recently published panel data on income shares of the top richest percentiles of the population to understand the link between income inequality and household transport expenditure in rich countries. Evidence and a theoretical discussion are provided in regard to the significance and different signs of the link between income distribution and household expenditure on purchase of private vehicles, operation of personal transport equipment, and transport services. Although many determinants of household transport expenditure are expected to be defined at a regional or city level, models using country-level variables can explain up to 61 per cent of the variance of items such as operation of private vehicles. The paper ends discussing these findings and providing theoretical interpretations, aiming to include income inequality as a relevant variable in future research on household transport expenditure.
Households in the lower income quintiles spend a larger proportion of their income on transport, chiefy the consumption of public transport, than higher-income households do. The differences are also more signifcant in terms of the “competition” with basic goods or the number of people living in these households. In this context, the structure of consumption shows that spending on transport cannot be disregarded, since it puts tension on the ability to obtain other basic goods. In turn, this impacts the quality and quantity of transport consumed, since it becomes an item that can be cut or, where it is indispensable, these cuts can be made in spending on basic goods instead.
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