The Impact of Telework on Local Consumption : Evidence from Mobile Phone and Transaction Data

While previous studies examine the impact of telework on consumption either near residences or workplaces, the net effect on local demand remains unclear. Using high-frequency mobile phone and card transaction data from Lyon, France’s second-largest functional urban area, we identify two causal demand shocks: a 1pp increase in work-from-home presence raises local spending by 1%, and a 1pp decrease in workplace presence reduces spending by 1.3%. Aggregating these opposing effects, we find a small and statistically insignificant decline in weekday offline consumption, suggesting that most spending shifts from workplace to home. We find that working from home is associated with a moderate spatial shift of spending from urban cores to residential suburbs, and a slight sectoral reallocation from restaurants toward food retail and bars.