What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

When Amazon told staffers last month to come back to the office five days a week, many observers reacted as if an earthquake struck the post-pandemic world of work. To Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, the news barely registered.

"I doubt it will change anything," he says, dismissing the notion that Amazon's mandate means many companies will rescind their work-from-home policies.

By now—more than four years after COVID-19 triggered one of the country's largest labor shocks since World War II—Bloom and his longtime collaborator Steven Davis of Stanford have gotten used to the frequent headlines questioning the staying power of working from home.

The pair, both senior fellows at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), have been on the forefront of remote work research from the onset of the pandemic. And the skeptics, they say, are wrong.

Their research finds that, despite the headline-grabbing pullbacks, work-from-home rates are holding steady—with about one-third of the U.S. workforce (quadruple pre-pandemic levels) logging in remotely at least two days a week.

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