Recent Findings in Economics Described by Researchers from Federal Reserve Bank (The Power of Proximity To Coworkres*): Economics

2026 JUL 09 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at TB & Outbreaks Daily News -- Data detailed on Economics have been presented. According to news reporting from New York City, New York, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, “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.”

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Federal Reserve Bank, “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.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “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.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: The Power of Proximity To Coworkres*. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2026. The Quarterly Journal of Economics can be contacted at: Oxford Univ Press Inc, Journals Dept, 2001 Evans Rd, Cary, NC 27513, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Natalia Emanuel, Federal Reserve Bank, New York, NY 10045, United States.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjag027. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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