Why Does Working from Home Vary Across Countries and People?

Pablo Zárate, Mathias Dolls, Steven Davis, Nicholas Bloom, Jose Maria Barrero and Cevat Giray Aksoy

No 19003, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We use two surveys to assess why work from home (WFH) varies so much across countries and people. A measure of cultural individualism accounts for about one-third of the cross-country variation in WFH rates. Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US score highly on individualism and WFH rates, whereas Asian countries score low on both. Other factors such as cumulative lockdown stringency, population density, industry mix, and GDP per capita also matter, but they account for less of the variation. When looking across individual workers in the United States, we find that industry mix, population density and lockdown severity help account for current WFH rates, as does the partisan leaning of the county in which the worker resides. We conclude that multiple factors influence WFH rates, and technological feasibility is only one of them.

JEL-codes: J2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-04
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Working Paper: Why Does Working from Home Vary across Countries and People? (2024)
Working Paper: Why Does Working from Home Vary Across Countries and People? (2024)
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