An Empirical Study of the Option Value of Teleworking

The overpopulation in urban areas causes various kinds of problems. Teleworking has potential to solve these problems and urge people to settle in rural areas. So it has commanded public attention as a new commuting way to surpass the limit of spatial distance. However, it doesn't spread as widely as it is expected. In this current situation, it is important to reveal a quantitative evaluation of teleworking from workers' point of view. In this study, we utilize the Contingent Valuation Method, which is mainly used in an evaluation of the environment, and try to measure workers' benefit in the form of their willingness to pay by monetary value, assuming the situation in which workers can telework. In addition, we utilize the model including the attribution expected to be related with the willingness to pay, to reveal which items can impact on the willingness to pay. These analyses are conducted by Survival Analysis and based on the data from the survey which is carried out in a specific company. After making a careful examination of the problems peculiar to the Contingent Valuation Method such as the protest bid, we analyzed the relation between the willingness to pay and the workers' attribution, and revealed what items impact on the workers' benefit. It is said that all participants in teleworking can be winners from a broad view, but we found that that isn't always true from a micro-view since the workers' benefit depends on their attribution. These results suggest that teleworking doesn't spread widely and you can't succeed unless you take the workers' attribution into consideration when introducing teleworking.