The spatial decay in commuting probabilities: Employment potential vs. commuting gravity

•We compare an employment potential capitalisation model to a commuting gravity model.•Using data from the same region we find statistically indistinguishable spatial decays.•Our results hold for different functional forms of the spatial decay.

We show that an employment potential capitalisation model produces estimates of the spatial decay in employment impact on land prices that are very close to the decay observed in commuting data.