Remote working arrangements have become increasingly prevalent in recent years. An estimated 11.8 percent of full- time employees in the United States work fully remotely while an additional 29 percent work partly remotely. In theory, remote work can be viewed as either a positive or negative amenity: It offers greater scheduling flexibility, enhancing work- life balance, but it may also limit access to face- to-face mentoring and raise concerns about potential career growth penalties.

The tech sector provides a particularly interesting context given its high work- from-home rate and its status as arguably the highest – paying and most innovative industry.The Harvard-Brown-UCLA study, titled “Home Sweet Home: How Much Do Employees Value Remote Work?” and published in the AEA Papers and Proceedings (2025), examines employees’ preferences for remote work arrangements and the associated wage-setting practices in the US tech sector. Using revealed preference data from job offers and choices, the authors (Zoë Cullen, Bobak Pakzad-Hurson, and Ricardo Perez-Truglia) estimate the amenity value of remote work.

They find that workers are willing to forgo a substantial portion of their compensation for remote options, but counterintuitively, remote positions do not command lower wages – in fact, they may pay slightly more.

The analysis draws on a sample of 1,396 tech workers surveyed between May 2023 and December 2024, in collaboration with levels.fyi, a platform for tech salary data. The tech sector is highlighted for its high remote work adoption (11.8% fully remote and 29% hybrid nationally, per Barrero, Bloom, and Davis 2023) and its status as a high-paying, innovative industry. It includes detailed information on job offers received by participants, such as total compensation (base salary, bonus, and equity), job location, and remote status (fully in-person, partly remote/hybrid, or fully remote). For participants who hadn’t yet accepted an offer, the survey captured the likelihood of acceptance.

Participants were predominantly male (83.7%), average 32 years old, with 6.7 years of experience. Common roles include software engineer, product manager, and data scientist; top employers are Google, Meta, and Apple. Average total compensation per offer is $239,000 (68.8% base salary, 7.5% bonus, 23.7% equity). 18.3% of offers are fully in-person; 81.7% are remote (40.7% fully remote, 59.3% partly remote).

Given high Willingness to Pay (WTP) for remote work, theory predicts a compensating differential: lower pay for remote positions as an amenity. The authors test this using levels.fyi salary submissions (June 2023-June 2024), comparable to the survey sample.However, the study showed remote positions pay 1.1% more on average than identical in-person ones. This opposes the expected ~25% discount for remote.

The study concludes that tech workers highly value remote work (WTP ~25%), but no compensating wage discount exists – remote pays slightly more.