About Matthew E. Kahn
Matthew E. Kahn is the Provost Professor of Economics at USC. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the IZA. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.
He has taught at Columbia, the Fletcher School at Tufts University, UCLA and Johns Hopkins. He has served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard and Stanford University and the National University of Singapore.
He is the author of ten books including; Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment (Brookings Institution Press 2006), Heroes and Cowards: The Social Face of War (Princeton University Press 2008 joint with Dora L. Costa), Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter World (Basic Books 2010), Blue Skies Over Beijing (joint with Siqi Zheng, Princeton University Press 2016), Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities (joint with Mac McComas Johns Hopkins University Press 2021), Adapting to Climate Change (Yale University Press 2021, and Going Remote (University of California Press 2022). He has also published three economics e-books on the Kindle Press Platform. His research focuses on urban and environmental economics.
Where to find Matthew E. Kahn
Going Remote: How the Flexible Work Economy Can Improve Our Lives and Our Cities
A leading urban economist’s hopeful study of how shifts to remote work can change all of our lives for the better.
As COVID-19 descended upon the country in 2020, millions of American office workers transitioned to working from home to reduce risk of infection and prevent spread of the virus.
In the aftermath of this shift, a significant number of workers remain at least partially remote. It is clear that this massive experiment we were forced to run will have long-term consequences, changing the shape of our personal and work lives, as well as the urban landscape around us.
How will the rise of telecommuting affect workers’ quality of life, the profitability of firms, and the economic geography of our cities and suburbs? Going Remote addresses the uncertainties and possibilities of this moment.
In Going Remote, urban economist Matthew E. Kahn takes readers on a journey through the new remote-work economy, revealing how people will configure their lives when they have more freedom to choose where they work and how they live. Melding ideas from labor economics, family economics, the theory of the firm, and urban economics, Kahn paints a realistic picture of the future for workers, firms, and urban areas, big and small. As Kahn shows, the rise of remote work presents especially valuable opportunities for flexibility and equity in the lives of women, minorities, and young people, and even for those whose jobs do not allow them to work from home. Uncovering key implications for our quality of life, Going Remote demonstrates how the rise of remote work can significantly improve the standard of living for millions of people by expanding personal freedom, changing the arc of how we live, work, and play.