Working Paper
Work from Home and Migration
Rubinton, Hannah; Bick, Alexander; Blandin, Adam; Mertens, Karel (2026-07-01)
We study how full-time work from home (WFH) affects migration and economic activity across cities. Using ACS and novel survey data, we show WFH workers migrate 40–50 percent more than comparable commuters, commuters who switch to WFH migrate more, plausibly exogenous WFH expansions raise migration and WFH workers migrate to lower-cost cities than commuters. The post-Covid expansion in WFH coincided with a large increase in migration; WFH accounts for half of this increase and much of the cross-city variation in migration changes. Recently, WFH has stabilized at twice its pre-Covid rate. We ...
Working Papers , Paper 2617

Journal Article
Business Dynamism and City Size
Rubinton, Hannah (2021-02-26)
Business dynamism has been decreasing since the 1980s, but less so for larger cities.
Economic Synopses , Issue 4 , Pages 1-2

Journal Article
Information and Communications Technology Spending and City Size
Isaacson, Maggie; Rubinton, Hannah (2021-04-26)
Firms in big cities are spending more on information and communications technology than firms in small cities, a likely cause of the growing economic divide between big and small U.S. cities.
Economic Synopses , Issue 7 , Pages 1-2

Journal Article
Childhood Income Volatility
Isaacson, Maggie; Rubinton, Hannah (2021-05-07)
Rising volatility in family income suggests that government efforts such as the monthly payment of the child tax credit may be appropriate.
Economic Synopses , Issue 8 , Pages 1-3

Journal Article
School District Expenditures and Race
Isaacson, Maggie; Rubinton, Hannah (2022-02-16)
On average, spending per student is very similar for Black and White students, yet schools with a higher share of Black students spend less per student on instruction.
Economic Synopses

Journal Article
Inflation and Shipping Costs
Isaacson, Maggie; Rubinton, Hannah (2022-03-18)
Imports that are more reliant on ocean freight have seen higher import price inflation since the start of the pandemic.
Economic Synopses , Issue 5 , Pages 1-2

Journal Article
City Segregation and the College Degree Gap
Isaacson, Maggie; Rubinton, Hannah (2022-06-23)
For a 0.1 increase in the dissimilarity index, the average racial gap in college attainment increases by 1.64 percentage points.
Economic Synopses , Issue 17 , Pages 1-2

Journal Article
Income Segregation and Income Inequality
Isaacson, Maggie; Rubinton, Hannah (2023-03-27)
This essay examines the relationship between income inequality and income segregation in the 100 largest cities in the United States.
Economic Synopses , Issue 5 , Pages 2 pages

Journal Article
Where Are the Workers? A Look into the Decline in Immigration
Rubinton, Hannah; Marks, Cassandra (2023-09-15)
The number of missing workers in the US labor force peaked at 2.58 million in June 2020 during the pandemic, but immigration restrictions are likely not the main driver of the high vacancy-to-unemployment ratio.
Economic Synopses

Journal Article
Where Are Labor Markets the Tightest? A Tale of the 100 Largest US Cities
Rubinton, Hannah; Ricketts, Lowell R.; Marks, Cassandra; Rodgers, William M. (2023-12-15)
How does labor market tightness vary across the US, and how have labor markets changed since the pandemic? The vacancy-to-unemployment ratio is a common measure.
Economic Synopses , Issue 25 , Pages 3 pages