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The Geography of Remote Work

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  • Lukas Althoff
  • Fabian Eckert
  • Sharat Ganapati
  • Conor Walsh

Abstract

Big city economies specialize in business service industries whose workers’ local spending in turn supports a large local consumer service industry. Business service jobs have a high remote work potential. If remote work becomes more prevalent, many business service workers may leave expensive cities and work from elsewhere withdrawing spending from the local non-tradable service industries dependent on their demand. We use the recent COVID-19-induced increase in remote work to test for the strength of this mechanism and find it to be strong. As a result, low-skill service workers in big cities bore most of the pandemic’s economic impact. Our findings have broader implications for the distributional consequences of the US economy’s transition to more remote work.

Suggested Citation

  • Lukas Althoff & Fabian Eckert & Sharat Ganapati & Conor Walsh, 2021. "The Geography of Remote Work," NBER Working Papers 29181, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29181
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    Cited by:

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    2. Howard, Greg & Liebersohn, Jack & Ozimek, Adam, 2023. "The short- and long-run effects of remote work on U.S. housing markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(1), pages 166-184.
    3. Bergeaud, Antonin & Eyméoud, Jean-Benoît & Garcia, Thomas & Henricot, Dorian, 2023. "Working from home and corporate real estate," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    4. Blanas, Sotiris & Oikonomou, Rigas, 2023. "COVID-induced economic uncertainty, tasks and occupational demand," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Alipour, Jean-Victor & Falck, Oliver & Schüller, Simone, 2023. "Germany’s capacity to work from home," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    6. Richard Gearhart & Lyudmyla Sonchak-Ardan & Nyakundi Michieka, 2022. "The efficiency of COVID cases to COVID policies: a robust conditional approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(6), pages 2903-2948, December.
    7. Liu, Sitian & Su, Yichen, 2022. "The Effect of Working from Home on the Agglomeration Economies of Cities: Evidence from Advertised Wages," MPRA Paper 114429, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Crescenzi, Riccardo & Giua, Mara & Rigo, Davide, 2022. "How many jobs can be done at home? Not as many as you think!," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117523, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Alexander Frank Pasquel Cajas & Verónica Tomasa Cajas Bravo & Roberto Carlos Dávila Morán, 2023. "Remote Work in Peru during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-25, February.
    10. Gokan,Toshitaka & Kichko,Sergei & Matheson,Jesse A & Thisse,Jacques-François, 2022. "How the rise of teleworking will reshape labor markets and cities?," IDE Discussion Papers 868, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    11. Batalha, Mafalda & Gonçalves, Duarte & Peralta, Susana & Pereira dos Santos, João, 2022. "The virus that devastated tourism: The impact of covid-19 on the housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    12. Tim Bartik, 2023. "Seize the Time: Needed Research on Local Economic Development in an Era of Increased Attention to Problems of Place," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 37(1), pages 7-13, February.
    13. Schulz, Rainer & Watson, Verity & Wersing, Martin, 2023. "Teleworking and housing demand," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    14. Parkhomenko, Andrii & Delventhal, Matthew J, 2023. "Spatial Implications of Telecommuting in the United States," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt97q6c2rg, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    15. Roberto Camagni & Roberta Capello & Camilla Lenzi & Giovanni Perucca, 2023. "Urban crisis vs. urban success in the era of 4.0 technologies: Baumol's model revisited," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 589-612, June.
    16. Gilles Duranton & Jessie Handbury, 2023. "COVID and Cities, Thus Far," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 29(2), pages 6-52, October.
    17. Jane Wuth, 2023. "(Why) Do digital startups move to rural regions?," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(4), pages 845-862, May.
    18. Joan Sebastián Rojas Rincón & Andrés Ricardo Riveros Tarazona & Andrés Mauricio Mejía Martínez & Julio César Acosta-Prado, 2023. "Sentiment Analysis on Twitter-Based Teleworking in a Post-Pandemic COVID-19 Context," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-22, November.
    19. Lei Ding & Jackelyn Hwang, 2022. "Has COVID Reversed Gentrification in Major U.S. Cities? An Empirical Examination of Residential Mobility in Gentrifying Neighborhoods During the COVID-19 Crisis," Working Papers 22-20, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    20. Jan K. Brueckner & S. Sayantani, 2022. "Intercity Impacts of Work-from-Home with Both Remote and Non-Remote Workers," CESifo Working Paper Series 9793, CESifo.
    21. Chloé Duvivier & Claire Bussière, 2022. "The contingent nature of broadband as an engine for business startups in rural areas," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(5), pages 1329-1357, November.
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    JEL classification:

    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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