This paper studies whether working from home (WFH) affects workers' performance in public sector jobs. Studying public sector initiatives allows us to establish baseline estimates on the impact of WFH net of incentives. Exploiting novel administrative data and plausibly exogenous variation in work location, we find that WFH increases productivity by 12%. These productivity gains are primarily driven by reduced distractions. They are not explained by differences in quality, shift length, absenteeism, characteristics of reported cases, training, administrative duties, or task allocation. Importantly, productivity gains nearly double when tasks are assigned by the supervisor.

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Alessandra Fenizia and Tom Kirchmaier

25 September 2024     Paper Number CEPDP2036

Download PDF - Not incentivized yet efficient: Working from home in the public sector

This CEP discussion paper is published under the centre's Community Wellbeing programme.