Telework and Productivity Before, During and After the COVID-19 Crisis

Télétravail et productivité avant, pendant et après la pandémie de Covid‑19

Antonin Bergeaud, Gilbert Cette () and Simon Drapala
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Antonin Bergeaud: Centre de recherche de la Banque de France - Banque de France
Gilbert Cette: NEOMA - Neoma Business School
Simon Drapala: PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris

PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL

Abstract: We use the data from a Banque de France survey, carried out among French companies about their use of telework in 2019 and during the first lockdown in the spring of 2020. Combining this with detailed information regarding their balance sheets and profit and loss accounts, we show that those that made more use of telework in 2019 were more produc‑ tive on average and better withstood the crisis overall. They are also larger and relatively less capital‑intensive, although they have relatively high fixed assets in the form of IT equipment and intangible assets when compared with other companies. The estimations show that a significant global increase in the use of telework in the long term could increase productivity by around 10%. The findings also reveal the non‑linear effects of telework on productivity. Companies that were already practising telework in 2019 were more likely than others to want to increase this in the future and those that were looking to do so were more likely to be planning an increase in their IT investment, as well as a change of premises.

Keywords: productivity; COVID‑19; telework; Covid-19; Productivité; télétravail (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://insee.hal.science/hal-05201987v1
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Published in Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 2023, 539, pp.73 - 89. ⟨10.24187/ecostat.2023.539.2098⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-05201987

DOI: 10.24187/ecostat.2023.539.2098

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