A leading urban economist's hopeful study of how shifts to remote work can change all of our lives for the better. As COVID-19 descended upon the country in 2020, millions of American office workers transitioned to working from home to reduce risk of infection and prevent spread of the virus. In the aftermath of this shift, a significant number of workers remain at least partially remote. It is clear that this massive experiment we were forced to run will have long-term consequences, changing the shape of our personal and work lives, as well as the urban landscape around us. How will the rise of telecommuting affect workers' quality of life, the profitability of firms, and the economic geography of our cities and suburbs? Going Remote addresses the uncertainties and possibilities of this moment. In Going Remote, urban economist Matthew E. Kahn takes readers on a journey through the new remote-work economy, revealing how people will configure their lives when they have more freedom to choose where they work and how they live. Melding ideas from labor economics, family economics, the theory of the firm, and urban economics, Kahn paints a realistic picture of the future for workers, firms, and urban areas, big and small. As Kahn shows, the rise of remote work presents especially valuable opportunities for flexibility and equity in the lives of women, minorities, and young people, and even for those whose jobs do not allow them to work from home. Uncovering key implications for our quality of life, Going Remote demonstrates how the rise of remote work can significantly improve the standard of living for millions of people by expanding personal freedom, changing the arc of how we live, work, and play.

How individuals and the government are changing life in China's polluted cities Over the past thirty years, even as China's economy has grown by leaps and bounds, the environmental quality of its urban centers has precipitously declined due to heavy industrial output and coal consumption. The country is currently the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter and several of the most polluted cities in the world are in China. Yet, millions of people continue moving to its cities seeking opportunities. Blue Skies over Beijing investigates the ways that China's urban development impacts local and global environmental challenges. Focusing on day-to-day choices made by the nation's citizens, families, and government, Matthew Kahn and Siqi Zheng examine how Chinese urbanites are increasingly demanding cleaner living conditions and consider where China might be headed in terms of sustainable urban growth. Kahn and Zheng delve into life in China's cities from the personal perspectives of the rich, middle class, and poor, and how they cope with the stresses of pollution. Urban parents in China have a strong desire to protect their children from environmental risk, and calls for a better quality of life from the rising middle class places pressure on government officials to support greener policies. Using the historical evolution of American cities as a comparison, the authors predict that as China's economy moves away from heavy manufacturing toward cleaner sectors, many of China's cities should experience environmental progress in upcoming decades. Looking at pressing economic and environmental issues in urban China, Blue Skies over Beijing shows that a cleaner China will mean more social stability for the nation and the world.

Over the last thirty years, even as China's economy has grown by leaps and bounds, the environmental quality of its urban centers has precipitously declined due to heavy industrial output and coal consumption. The country is currently the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter and several of the most polluted cities in the world are in China. Yet, millions of people continue moving to its cities seeking opportunities. Blue Skies over Beijing investigates the ways that China's urban development impacts local and global environmental challenges. Focusing on day-to-day choices made by the nation's citizens, families, and government, Matthew Kahn and Siqi Zheng examine how Chinese urbanites are increasingly demanding cleaner living conditions and consider where China might be headed in terms of sustainable urban growth. Kahn and Zheng delve into life in China's cities from the personal perspectives of the rich, middle class, and poor, and how they cope with the stresses of pollution. Urban parents in China have a strong desire to protect their children from environmental risk, and calls for a better quality of life from the rising middle class places pressure on government officials to support greener policies. Using the historical evolution of American cities as a comparison, the authors predict that as China's economy moves away from heavy manufacturing toward cleaner sectors, many of China's cities should experience environmental progress in upcoming decades. Looking at pressing economic and environmental issues in urban China, Blue Skies over Beijing shows that a cleaner China will mean more social stability for the nation and the world.

A revelatory study of how climate change will affect individual economic decisions, and the broad impact of those choices Selected by Publishers Weekly as one of its Top Ten books in Business and Economics for Spring 2021 It is all but certain that the next century will be hotter than any we've experienced before. Even if we get serious about fighting climate change, it's clear that we will need to adapt to the changes already underway in our environment. This book considers how individual economic choices in response to climate change will transform the larger economy. Using the tools of microeconomics, Matthew E. Kahn explores how decisions about where we live, how our food is grown, and where new business ventures choose to locate are affected by climate change. Kahn suggests new ways that big data can be deployed to ease energy or water shortages to aid agricultural operations and proposes informed policy changes related to public infrastructure, disaster relief, and real estate to nudge land use, transportation options, and business development in the right direction.

"This impressive study, based on a random sample of forty thousand Civil War soldiers both black and white, reaches important conclusions about their motivation and behavior. Its most significant findings emphasize the role of close social networks within companies and regiments in promoting combat performance, preventing desertion, and increasing survival rates in POW camps. Readable and accessible to nonspecialists, this book should find a wide audience among those interested in the Civil War as well as group behavior more generally."--James McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Battle Cry of Freedom"

"This remarkable book is destined to become a classic in social science. It addresses issues of supreme importance and timeliness--loyalty, betrayal, heroism, cowardice, survival, the challenges of diversity, and the benefits of social bonds. It rests on rigorous statistical analysis of an extraordinary historical archive, and yet it is so readable as to be unputdownable. It deals with a single epochal event in one nation's history--the U.S. Civil War--and yet its lessons are highly relevant in many other eras and societies, including our own."--Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community"

"Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn built a social science laboratory from the enlistment and pension records of men who fought in the Union Army during the American Civil War. In that remarkable laboratory they have discovered how friendship, community ties, and social status alter our choices. Read "Heroes and Cowards" for its reliable science; savor it for how it honors the harrowing circumstances that made the science possible."--Michael Hout, coauthor of "Century of Difference: How America Changed in the Last One Hundred Years"

"Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn have written a superb book on bravery in the Civil War. Their work informs us not only about courage under fire, but about the many settings where people are called upon to act for a common good. This is a pioneering piece of social science."--Edward L. Glaeser, Harvard University

"In the remarkable "Heroes and Cowards," Costa and Kahn demonstrate how social bonds helped determine which soldiers would fight to the death and which would flee for their lives, which soldiers would survive the deadly prison camps and which would succumb. The authors utilize the tools of social science to serve, rather than obscure, the riveting accounts by Union soldiers--the heroes, the cowards, and those in between."--Claude S. Fischer, University of California, Berkeley

"With its excellent blending of qualitative and quantitative data, this is a significant contribution to Civil War history and, more generally, to military history. It will be of great interest to economists, historians and general readers, especially the large number still fascinated by the Civil War."--Stanley L. Engerman, coauthor of "Time on the Cross"

"Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn are two accomplished scholars whose work offers substantially new insights, on why men desert and how this affects them; on the experience of black soldiers during and after the war; and on the migration patterns of war veterans. The research behind this book is based on data that has not previously been used by scholars, and their use of that data is imaginative and revealing. "Heroes and Cowards" is a significant contribution to ourknowledge of how Civil War veterans coped with the stresses of war and their lives after 1865."--Roger Ransom, author of "The Confederate States of America: What Might Have Been"

""Heroes and Cowards" is a remarkable and impressive piece of economic history, a unique book that will interest a large readership."--Louis P. Cain, Loyola University Chicago

What is a green city? What does it mean to say that San Francisco or Vancouver is more " green" than Houston or Beijing? When does urban growth lower environmental quality, and when does it yield environmental gains? How can cities deal with the environmental challenges posed by growth? These are the questions Matthew Kahn takes on in this smart and engaging book. Written in a lively, accessible style, Green Cities takes the reader on a tour of the extensive economic literature on the environmental consequences of urban growth. Kahn starts with an exploration of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)the hypothesis that the relationship between environmental quality and per capita income follows a bell-shaped curve. He then analyzes several critiques of the EKC and discusses the implications of growth in urban population and surface area, as well as income. The concluding chapter addresses the role of cities in promoting climate change and asks how cities in turn are likely to be affected by this trend. As Kahn points out, although economics is known as the " dismal science, " economists are often quite optimistic about the relationship between urban development and the environment. In contrast, many ecologists and environmentalists remain wary of the environmental consequences of free-market growth. Rather than try to settle this dispute, this book conveys the excitement of an ongoing debate. Green Cities does not provide easy answers complex dilemmas. It does something more importantit provides the tools readers need to analyze these issues on their own.

How can urban leaders in Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis make the smart choices that can lead their city to make a comeback? The urban centers of New York City, Seattle, and San Francisco have enjoyed tremendous economic success and population growth in recent years. At the same time, cities like Baltimore and Detroit have experienced population loss and economic decline. People living in these cities are not enjoying the American Dream of upward mobility. How can post-industrial cities struggling with crime, pollution, poverty, and economic decline make a comeback? In Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities, Matthew E. Kahn and Mac McComas explore why some people and places thrive during a time of growing economic inequality and polarization-and some don't. They examine six underperforming cities-Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis-that have struggled from 1970 to present. Drawing from the field of urban economics, Kahn and McComas ask how the public and private sectors can craft policies and make investments that create safe, green cities where young people reach their full potential. The authors analyze long-run economic and demographic trends. They also highlight recent lessons from urban economics in labor market demand and supply, neighborhood quality of life, and local governance while scrutinizing strategies to lift people out of poverty. These cities are all at a fork in the road. Depending on choices made today, they could enjoy a significant comeback-but only if local leaders are open to experimentation and innovation while being honest about failure and constructive evaluation. Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities provides a roadmap for how urban policy makers, community members, and practitioners in the public and private sector can work together with researchers to discover how all cities can solve the most pressing modern urban challenges.