We show that cities with higher population density specialize in high-skill service jobs that can be done remotely. The urban and industry bias of remote work potential shaped the recent pandemic’s economic impact. Many big-city high-skill service workers started to work remotely, withdrawing...

We provide a spatial theory of clean growth to assess the global impact of the rise of renewable energy. We model the details of the combined production and transmission network of electricity ("the grid") that determine the supply and losses of energy in space. The local rate of clean energy...

Since 1980, economic growth in the U.S. has been fastest in its largest cities. We show that a group of skill and information-intensive service industries are responsible for all of this new urban bias in recent growth. We then propose a simple explanation centered around the interaction of...

Firm creation is central to many theories of economic growth. I show using U.S. Census microdata that new firms play a dominant role in the growth of local areas, such as cities and counties. Entry is very persistent at the local level, and variation in this extensive margin accounts for most of...