Housing Consumption and the Cost of Remote Work

Christopher T. Stanton and Pratyush Tiwari

No 28483, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper estimates housing choice differences between households with and without remote workers. Prior to the pandemic, the expenditure share on housing was more than seven percent higher for remote households compared to similar non-remote households in the same commuting zone. Remote households’ higher housing expenditures arise from larger dwellings (more rooms) and a higher price per room. Pre-COVID, households with remote workers were actually located in areas with above-average housing costs, and sorting within-commuting zone to suburban or rural areas was not economically meaningful. Using the pre-COVID distribution of locations, we estimate how much additional pre-tax income would be necessary to compensate non-remote households for extra housing expenses arising from remote work in the absence of geographic mobility, and we compare this compensation to commercial office rents in major metro areas.

JEL-codes: J32 J81 J82 R21 R3 R40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-lab and nep-ure
Note: LS PR
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

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