Remote Work Attraction Incentive Programs as a Tool for Urban Economic Development

Traditionally, communities have offered economic development incentives to encourage companies to re-locate and bring jobs to their areas. The recent shift to remote work, and specifically work-from-anywhere, has potentially decoupled the location of the employer from the location of the worker. This allows local and state governments to provide incentives directly to the remote workers. Drawing on an interdisciplinary literature, we compare providing incentives directly to remote workers (Remote Work Attraction Incentive Programs, “RWAIP”) with conventional economic development incentives. Our initial comparison suggests that targeting remote workers can be a very effective economic development strategy, but with significant caveats and conditions. We then propose a research agenda around studying the implications of attracting remote workers as a form of urban economic development