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  5. Working from Home: Global Trends and Consequences
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Working from Home: Global Trends and Consequences

Paper Session

Friday, Jan. 6, 2023 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (CST)

Hilton Riverside, Grand Ballroom D
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Hosted By: American Economic Association
  • Chair: Johannes Wieland, University of California-San Diego

Working From Home Around the World

Cevat Giray Aksoy
,
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Jose Maria Barrero
,
Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico
Nicholas Bloom
,
Stanford University
Steven J. Davis
,
University of Chicago
Mathias Dolls
,
Ifo Institute

Abstract

We survey working-age persons in 27 countries to study the pandemic-induced shift to working from home (WFH) and its consequences. We find five results: First, among persons who worked remotely at some point during the pandemic, a plurality were more productive than they had anticipated. Second, employer plans for how much the employee will work from home after the pandemic are strongly increasing in the size of the productivity surprise during the pandemic. This pattern, which holds in every country, indicates that experimentation and learning during the pandemic will have an enduring effect on working arrangements and the extent of the WFH long after the pandemic ends. Third, respondents value the option to WFH two or three days a week as much as a 5% pay raise. Fourth, many workers think that WFH part of the week raises their productivity. Fifth, if required to return to the worksite 5 days per week, 15% of respondents say they would quit or start looking for a new job that offered the ability to WFH.

Working From Home After COVID-19: Evidence From Job Postings in 20 Countries

Pawel Adrjan
,
Indeed Hiring Lab and University of Oxford
Gabriele Ciminelli
,
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Michael Koelle
,
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
Tara M. Sinclair
,
George Washington University
Cyrille Schwellnus
,
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

Abstract

We study the adoption of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. We assemble a novel high- frequency database of job postings advertising work from home (telework) covering 20 countries and 55 occupation categories, using data from the online job site Indeed. Exploiting changes in pandemic severity across countries and differences in the feasibility of telework across occupations in a triple differences identification strategy, we find that (i) increases in pandemic severity substantially raise advertised telework but (ii) declines have no effect on advertised telework. Overall, these results imply that the pandemic has permanently unlocked the potential to telework, especially in high-skilled occupations where telework is most feasible. Public policies will need to adapt to make the most of permanently higher telework in terms of productivity and worker well-being.

Living on My Own: The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Housing Preferences

Elisa Guglielminetti
,
Bank of Italy
Michele Loberto
,
Bank of Italy
Roberta Zizza
,
Bank of Italy
Giordano Zevi
,
Bank of Italy

Abstract

We quantify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the housing demand of Italian households by exploiting new information on their search activity on the market. The data comes from two unique datasets: the Italian Housing Market Survey, conducted quarterly on a large sample of real estate agents, and the universe of weekly housing sales advertisements taken from Immobiliare.it, a popular online portal for real estate services in Italy. The latter includes high-frequency and house-specific measures of the online interest of potential home buyers. The pandemic generated a large increase in demand for houses located in areas with a lower population density, mainly driven by a significant shift in preferences towards larger, single-family housing properties, with outdoor spaces. Fear of contagion, lockdown measures and the growth in remote working arrangements all likely shaped the evolution of housing demand, with potentially long-lasting consequences on the housing market.

Housing Demand and Remote Work

John Mondragon
,
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Johannes Wieland
,
University of California-San Diego

Abstract

What explains record U.S. house price growth during the Covid-19 pandemic? We show that the shift to remote work explains over one half of the 23.8 percent national house price increase over this period. Using variation in remote work exposure across U.S. metropolitan areas we estimate that an additional percentage point of remote work causes a 0.90 percent increase in house prices after controlling for negative spillovers from migration. This cross-sectional estimate combined with the aggregate shift to remote work implies that remote work raised aggregate U.S. house prices by 14.6 percent. Using a model of remote work and location choice we argue that this estimate is a lower bound on the aggregate effect. Our results imply that the evolution of remote work is likely to have large effects on the future path of house prices and inflation.
JEL Classifications
  • E6 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
  • O3 - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights