Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2026 · Natalia Emanuel、Emma Harrington、Amanda Pallais
中文摘要
与同事的邻近程度如何影响培训与生产率？我们研究了一家《财富》500强企业2019年至2024年间的软件工程师，利用了两次对邻近程度的冲击：2020年的办公室关闭，以及随后2022年和2023年的重返办公室强制要求。在两种情形下，共处一地的团队比分布式团队经历了更大的邻近程度变化，从而便于构建双重差分设计。我们发现，坐在队友附近使编码反馈增加18.3%，并提升代码质量。这些收益集中于资历较浅、较年轻、正在积累人力资本的员工。然而，其中存在一种权衡：经验丰富的工程师在坐在队友附近时编写的代码更少。在美国全国数据中，我们发现证据表明，远程工作的兴起对年轻大学毕业生产生了疤痕效应。在可远程工作的岗位中，与疫情前（2017—2019年）相比，疫情后（2022—2024年）年轻毕业生相对于年长毕业生的失业率有所上升；而在不可远程工作的岗位中，我们未观察到这一模式。
Abstract
Abstract How does proximity to coworkers affect training and productivity? We study software engineers at a Fortune 500 firm from 2019 to 2024, leveraging two shocks to proximity: the office closures in 2020 and the subsequent return-to-office mandates in 2022 and 2023. In both cases, co-located teams experienced bigger changes in proximity than distributed ones, facilitating difference-in-differences designs. We find that sitting near teammates increases coding feedback by 18.3% and improves code quality. Gains are concentrated among less-tenured and younger employees, who are building human capital. However, there is a trade-off: experienced engineers write less code when sitting near teammates. In national U.S. data, we find evidence that the rise of remote work has had scarring effects on young college graduates. In remotable jobs, young graduates’ unemployment rate increased relative to older graduates’ post-pandemic (2022–2024) compared to pre-pandemic (2017–2019), a pattern we do not observe in non-remotable jobs.