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Working from Home, Wages, and Regional Inequality in the Light of COVID-19

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  • Michael Irlacher, Johannes Kepler University of Linz
  • ,
  • Michael Koch

We use the most recent wave of the German Qualifications and Career Survey to reveal a substantial wage premium in a Mincer regression for workers performing their job from home. The premium accounts for more than 10% and persists within narrowly defined jobs as well as after controlling for workplace characteristics. In a next step, we provide evidence on substantial regional variation in the share of jobs that can be done from home in Germany. Our analysis reveals a strong, positive relation between the share of jobs with working from home opportunities and the mean worker income in a district. Assuming that jobs with the opportunity of remote work are more crisis proof, our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic might affect poorer regions to a greater extent. Hence, examining regional disparities is central for policy-makers in choosing economic policies to mitigate the consequences of this crisis.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJahrbucher fur Nationalokonomie und Statistik
Volume241
Issue3
Pages (from-to)373-404
Number of pages32
ISSN0021-4027
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2020.

Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

    Research areas

  • BIBB-BAuA, COVID-19, home office, regional disparities, working from home

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