Decline of Hitchhiking: An Economic Perspective

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In their Freakonomics podcast titled, “Where Have All the Hitchhikers Gone?” Stephen J. Dubner and Stephen D. Levitt discuss the most probable reasons for why hitchhiking has dramatically declined almost to the point of extinction in recent years and how it has affected modern society through an economic viewpoint. The two main motives discussed for why the demand of hitchhiking has plummeted since the early-80’s are that Americans began to fear hitchhiking because they saw it as dangerous and because transportation became cheaper and more readily available. During the 60’s and 70’s hitchhiking was considered a matching market, in other words, there were always some people who wanted to hitch a ride and there were always people willing to

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