Research

Abstract: Commuting is a fundamental aspect of employees’ daily routines and continues to evolve with technological advancements. Yet the effects of commuting on subjective well-being remain insufficiently investigated in the context of expanding digital connectivity. This paper examines the causal effects of changes in commuting distance on subjective well-being in an era of widespread mobile internet availability. Exploiting exogenous shifts in commuting distance resulting from employer-driven workplace relocations, we employ a Difference-in-Differences framework using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) from 2010 to 2019. Our results show that an involuntary increase in commuting distance reduces life satisfaction by 3 percent, on average, and heightens feelings of worry by almost 8 percent, on average. Our heterogeneity analysis shows that increased mobile coverage during commutes partially mitigates the decline in life satisfaction but exacerbates the negative impact on satisfaction with leisure. 

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a sudden and lasting shift to work-from-home (WFH) in many occupations. However, we know very little about how WFH affects health-related absenteeism and health. In this paper, we use the sharp increase in WFH in Germany in March 2020 as a natural experiment to examine its short- and medium-term effects on sick leave take-up. Specifically, we exploit the pre-pandemic variation in WFH potential across occupations and link it to individual data on health care utilization and diagnoses between 2018 and 2023 from a large statutory health insurance fund. Combining event studies and a difference-in-difference design, we compare the sick leave taking of individuals who held jobs with different WFH potentials. We find that higher WFH potential persistently decreases sickness absence. The effect is driven by short-term sick leave due to minor infections and musculoskeletal problems such as back pain.