Does competition matter in measures of job accessibility? Explaining employment in Los Angeles

In this paper, we examine four accessibility measures, two of which account for spatial competition and the other two do not, using the Los Angeles metropolitan area as a case study. We find that measures of competitive accessibility have stronger associations with employment than non-competitive accessibility measures. We examine the relationship between residential accessibility and employment for four separate levels of educational attainment, and we find that competitive measures are especially pertinent for population segments with lower educational attainment. Therefore, we recommend competitive accessibility measures to assess the employment opportunity more accurately.