We estimate the causal effect of workplace–home commuting distance on inventor productivity. We construct a novel panel of U.S. inventors with precisely measured workplace–home distances and inventor-level productivity. Our identification strategy exploits firm office relocations as exogenous variation in the commuting distance of inventors at the firms. We find a significant negative effect from commuting distance on inventor productivity: every 10 km increase in distance is associated with a 5% decrease in patents per inventor–firm pair per year and an even greater 7% decrease in patent quality. The highest-performing inventors suffer more from increased commuting distance. We discuss the implications of our findings in the light of recent trends around telecommuting and remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

我们估计工作场所与家庭之间的通勤距离对发明人生产率的因果关系。我们构建了一个由美国发明家组成的新颖小组，该小组精确测量了工作场所到家庭的距离和发明家水平的生产率。我们的识别策略将公司的办公室搬迁作为公司发明人通勤距离的外生变化。我们发现通勤距离对发明人的生产率产生了显着的负面影响：距离每增加10 km，每对发明家/公司对的专利每年减少5％，专利质量下降甚至超过7％。表现最好的发明人遭受通勤距离增加的困扰。我们将根据COVID-19大流行期间远程办公和远程工作的最新趋势来讨论研究结果的含义。