Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142.
Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Nov 5;121(45):e2408930121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2408930121. Epub 2024 Oct 29.
In recent decades, economic activity has become increasingly concentrated in major global metropolises. Yet, the rise of working from home threatens this dominance of cities. Using multiple high-frequency datasets on spending, commuting, migration, and housing, we provide global evidence that remote work has dispersed economic activity away from city centers. We label this the "Donut Effect," which is much larger and more persistent in cities with high levels of remote work. Using detailed household microdata from the United States, we show that three-fifths of households that left city centers in big cities moved to the suburbs of the same city. This is likely explained by the rise of hybrid work, in which employees still commute to the office a few days a week. The enduring popularity of hybrid work into 2024 suggests that the Donut Effect will persist while also leaving broader metropolitan areas intact.
近几十年来，经济活动日益集中于主要的全球大都市。然而，远程办公的兴起威胁到了城市的主导地位。我们使用关于支出、通勤、移民和住房的多个高频数据集，提供了远程工作使经济活动从市中心分散的全球证据。我们将其标记为“甜甜圈效应”，在远程工作水平较高的城市，这种效应更大且更持久。我们使用来自美国的详细家庭微观数据表明，五分之三离开大城市中心的家庭搬到了同一城市的郊区。这可能是由于混合办公的兴起所致，即员工仍每周有几天通勤到办公室。到 2024 年，混合办公的持续流行表明，甜甜圈效应将持续存在，同时也使更广泛的大都市区保持完整。
