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Journal Article
Cell Phone Data Suggest Persistent Differences in Work from Home by Income, Race, and Education during the Pandemic
Social-distancing policies to combat the spread of COVID-19 led to an initial spike in work from home. We use high-frequency cell phone geolocation data to assess how work from home has evolved since then. We show that work from home declined as restrictions eased but remains above pre-pandemic levels. In addition, we find that differences across income, race, and education in work from home that emerged with the pandemic persist a year later.
Working Paper
Getting Smart About Phones : New Price Indexes and the Allocation of Spending Between Devices and Services Plans in Personal Consumption Expenditures
This paper addresses two measurement issues for mobile phones. First, we develop a new mobile phone price index using hedonic quality-adjusted prices for smartphones and a matched-model index for feature phones. Our index falls at an average annual rate of 17 percent during 2010-2018, close to the rate of decline in the price index used in the GDP Accounts. Given relatively flat average prices over this period, our index points to substantial quality improvement. Second, we propose a methodology to disentangle purchases of phones and wireless services when they are bundled together as part of ...