Urban regions have a larger share of jobs that can be performed remotely

Factors such as the potential for remote working may help some locations adapt more easily to measures such as lockdowns, helping to mitigate their direct economic and social costs.

The potential for remote working varies greatly between countries but also within them. On average, there is a 15-percentage point difference between the region with the highest and lowest level in a given country. This difference reaches more than 20 percentage points in the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, and the United States, driven by comparatively high levels of potential remote working in their capitals.

This said, the potential for each occupation to be performed at home does not take into account the specific constraints faced by workers and firms to make potential work from home actually happen. Technological and hardware reasons (lack of IT equipment, broadband connection, etc.), family reasons (taking care of young kids or old relatives), or physical constraints (no space to work at home) also play a role, and remote working is viable only assuming the continuation of the activity in the sector as a whole.

Read the paper: Capacity for remote working can affect lockdown costs differently across places