IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/apjors/v8y2024i1d10.1007_s41685-023-00324-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring office attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic with mobility data to quantify local trends and characteristics

Author

Listed:
  • Makoto Sakuma

    (NLI Research Institute
    University of Tsukuba)

  • Kazushi Matsuo

    (University of Tsukuba)

  • Morito Tsutsumi

    (University of Tsukuba)

  • Toyokazu Imazeki

    (Sanko Estate Co., Ltd.)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the work-from-home trend, with significant variations in location, industry and firm size. These shifts have significantly affected economies and societies but traditional data cannot be easily tracked. This paper presents a method for measuring office attendance and examines its trends and characteristics. To this end, we first introduced the working-at-office ratio, which is the percentage of people going to an office compared to the pre-COVID-19 period, considering 74 office submarkets in six major Japanese cities. We captured mobility trends in office buildings using rich Global Positioning System-based mobile location data combined with specific office location data. Subsequently, we demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed indicators by comparing them with other mobility data and office attendance indicators. Finally, we examined the relationships between the working-at-office ratio and the characteristics of the office buildings and tenants in each submarket. The findings indicated that factors, such as the proportion of large buildings, concentration of specific sectors, and tenant size, were significantly related to office attendance, with these relationships evolving over the duration of the pandemic. Our approach provides real-time, granular insights into office attendance trends, which are crucial for anticipating future work paradigms.

Suggested Citation

  • Makoto Sakuma & Kazushi Matsuo & Morito Tsutsumi & Toyokazu Imazeki, 2024. "Measuring office attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic with mobility data to quantify local trends and characteristics," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 185-237, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:apjors:v:8:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s41685-023-00324-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s41685-023-00324-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41685-023-00324-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41685-023-00324-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Li, Teng & Barwick, Panle Jia & Deng, Yongheng & Huang, Xinfei & Li, Shanjun, 2023. "The COVID-19 pandemic and unemployment: Evidence from mobile phone data from China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    2. Terje Trasberg & James Cheshire, 2023. "Spatial and social disparities in the decline of activities during the COVID-19 lockdown in Greater London," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(8), pages 1427-1447, June.
    3. Masayuki Morikawa, 2022. "Work‐from‐home productivity during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Evidence from Japan," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 508-527, April.
    4. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2023. "The remote work revolution: Impact on real estate values and the urban environment: 2023 AREUEA Presidential Address," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(1), pages 7-48, January.
    5. 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).
    6. Jan K. Brueckner & Matthew E. Kahn & Gary C. Lin, 2023. "A New Spatial Hedonic Equilibrium in the Emerging Work-from-Home Economy?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 285-319, April.
    7. Dingel, Jonathan I. & Neiman, Brent, 2020. "How many jobs can be done at home?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    8. Fang, Hanming & Wang, Long & Yang, Yang, 2020. "Human mobility restrictions and the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    9. Rebecca Brough & Matthew Freedman & David C. Phillips, 2021. "Understanding socioeconomic disparities in travel behavior during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 753-774, September.
    10. repec:osf:socarx:kbdum_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Glaeser, Edward L. & Gorback, Caitlin & Redding, Stephen J., 2022. "JUE Insight: How much does COVID-19 increase with mobility? Evidence from New York and four other U.S. cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    12. Francke, Marc & Korevaar, Matthijs, 2021. "Housing markets in a pandemic: Evidence from historical outbreaks," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    13. Michael Gibbs & Friederike Mengel & Christoph Siemroth, 2023. "Work from Home and Productivity: Evidence from Personnel and Analytics Data on Information Technology Professionals," Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 7-41.
    14. Martin Hoesli & Richard Malle, 2021. "Commercial Real Estate Prices and Covid-19," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 21-08, Swiss Finance Institute.
    15. Indaco, Agustín, 2020. "From twitter to GDP: Estimating economic activity from social media," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    16. Kwan Ok Lee & Hyojung Lee, 2022. "Public responses to COVID‐19 case disclosure and their spatial implications," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 732-756, June.
    17. Agarwal, Shweta & Kumar, Shailendra & Goel, Utkarsh, 2019. "Stock market response to information diffusion through internet sources: A literature review," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 118-131.
    18. Goolsbee, Austan & Syverson, Chad, 2021. "Fear, lockdown, and diversion: Comparing drivers of pandemic economic decline 2020," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    19. Qian, Xianhang & Qiu, Shanyun & Zhang, Guangli, 2021. "The impact of COVID-19 on housing price: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    20. Venter, Zander & Barton, David & gundersen, vegard & Figari, Helene & Nowell, Megan, 2020. "Urban nature in a time of crisis: recreational use of green space increases during the COVID-19 outbreak in Oslo, Norway," SocArXiv kbdum, Center for Open Science.
    21. Couture, Victor & Dingel, Jonathan I. & Green, Allison & Handbury, Jessie & Williams, Kevin R., 2022. "JUE Insight: Measuring movement and social contact with smartphone data: a real-time application to COVID-19," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    22. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C. & Urrego, Joaquin A., 2022. "JUE insight: Are city centers losing their appeal? Commercial real estate, urban spatial structure, and COVID-19," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    23. Carlitz, Ruth D. & Makhura, Moraka N., 2021. "Life under lockdown: Illustrating tradeoffs in South Africa’s response to COVID-19," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    24. Baum-Snow, Nathaniel & Glaeser, Edward L. & Rosenthal, Stuart S., 2022. "The Spread and Consequences of COVID-19 for Cities: An Introduction," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    25. Coven, Joshua & Gupta, Arpit & Yao, Iris, 2023. "JUE Insight: Urban flight seeded the COVID-19 pandemic across the United States," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    26. Sheng, Jaymee & Malani, Anup & Goel, Ashish & Botla, Purushotham, 2022. "JUE insights: Does mobility explain why slums were hit harder by COVID-19 in Mumbai, India?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    27. Ayyoob Sharifi, 2020. "Urban Resilience Assessment: Mapping Knowledge Structure and Trends," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-18, July.
    28. Godfred Anakpo & Zanele Nqwayibana & Syden Mishi, 2023. "The Impact of Work-from-Home on Employee Performance and Productivity: A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-18, March.
    29. Kazushi Matsuo & Morito Tsutsumi & Toyokazu Imazeki, 2023. "Asymmetric Dynamics of Rent and Vacancy Rates in the Tokyo Office Market," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 26(1), pages 1-41.
    30. Dimke, Christine & Lee, Marissa C. & Bayham, Jude, 2021. "COVID-19 and the Renewed Migration to the Rural West," Western Economics Forum, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 19(01), June.
    31. Jayson S. Jia & Xin Lu & Yun Yuan & Ge Xu & Jianmin Jia & Nicholas A. Christakis, 2020. "Population flow drives spatio-temporal distribution of COVID-19 in China," Nature, Nature, vol. 582(7812), pages 389-394, June.
    32. Ritsu Kitagawa & Sachiko Kuroda & Hiroko Okudaira & Hideo Owan, 2021. "Working from home and productivity under the COVID-19 pandemic: Using survey data of four manufacturing firms," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-24, December.
    33. Joseph Vavra, 2021. "Tracking the Pandemic in Real Time: Administrative Micro Data in Business Cycles Enters the Spotlight," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 47-66, Summer.
    34. Brinkman, Jeffrey & Mangum, Kyle, 2022. "JUE Insight: The Geography of Travel Behavior in the Early Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    35. Alipour, Jean-Victor & Fadinger, Harald & Schymik, Jan, 2021. "My home is my castle – The benefits of working from home during a pandemic crisis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Behrens, Kristian & Kichko, Sergei & Thisse, Jacques-Francois, 2024. "Working from home: Too much of a good thing?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    2. 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).
    3. 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.
    4. Boto-García, David, 2023. "Investigating the two-way relationship between mobility flows and COVID-19 cases," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    5. Chen, Kong-Pin & Yang, Jui-Chung & Yang, Tzu-Ting, 2022. "JUE insight: Demand for transportation and spatial pattern of economic activity during the pandemic," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    6. Lee, Kangoh, 2023. "Working from home as an economic and social change: A review," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    7. Antonin Bergeaud & Jean-Benoît Eymeoud & Thomas Garcia & Dorian Henricot, 2022. "Working From Home and Corporate Real Estate," Post-Print hal-03548889, HAL.
    8. Almagro, Milena & Coven, Joshua & Gupta, Arpit & Orane-Hutchinson, Angelo, 2023. "Disparities in COVID-19 risk exposure: Evidence from geolocation data," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    9. Chen, Xiaoguang & Huang, Hanwei & Ju, Jiandong & Sun, Ruoyan & Zhang, Jialiang, 2024. "Endogenous mobility in pandemics: theory and evidence from the United States," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 126830, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Schouten, Andrew & Kawano, Yoh, 2024. "COVID-19 and the demand for transit access: Residential real estate prices in the Tokyo metropolitan area," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    11. Max Nathan, 2023. "Critical Commentary: The city and the virus," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(8), pages 1346-1364, June.
    12. Huang, Naqun & Pang, Jindong & Yang, Yanmin, 2023. "JUE Insight: COVID-19 and household preference for urban density in China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    13. Antonin Bergeaud & Jean Benoit Eymeoud & Thomas Garcia & Dorian Henricot, 2022. "Working from home and corporate real estate," CEP Discussion Papers dp1831, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Xiao Chen & Hanwei Huang & Jiandong Ju & Ruoyan Sun & Jialiang Zhang, 2022. "Endogenous cross-region human mobility and pandemics," CEP Discussion Papers dp1860, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Malik, Khyati & Kim, Sowon & Cultice, Brian J., 2023. "The impact of remote work on green space values in regional housing markets," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    16. Markus Nagler & Johannes Rincke & Erwin Winkler, 2024. "Working from home, commuting, and gender," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(3), pages 1-23, September.
    17. Bisin, Alberto & Moro, Andrea, 2022. "Spatial‐SIR with network structure and behavior: Lockdown rules and the Lucas critique," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 370-388.
    18. Chen, Xi & Qiu, Yun & Shi, Wei & Yu, Pei, 2022. "Key links in network interactions: Assessing route-specific travel restrictions in China during the Covid-19 pandemic," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    19. Ka Shing Cheung & Chung Yim Yiu & Chuyi Xiong, 2021. "Housing Market in the Time of Pandemic: A Price Gradient Analysis from the COVID-19 Epicentre in China," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-17, March.
    20. Mauro Caselli & Andrea Fracasso & Sergio Scicchitano, 2022. "From the lockdown to the new normal: individual mobility and local labor market characteristics following the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1517-1550, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Office attendance rate; COVID-19; Alternative data; Work from home;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C49 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Other
    • E29 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Other
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:apjors:v:8:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s41685-023-00324-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.