RESEARCH

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted firms' operations. To cope with the crisis, many firms have allowed their employees to work from home (WFH). We examine whether a firm's WFH capacity has increased its resilience during the pandemic. We test the hypotheses using a unique data set that combines listed firms' financial statements, supply chain partners, and job postings on a leading online platform that provides hiring services. We find that imposing COVID-19 anti-contagion policies on firms and their suppliers or customers significantly increases their operating revenue volatility, slows their recovery, and has repercussions on their supply chains. WFH enhances firms' resistance capacity by reducing the effect of COVID-19 on their operating revenue volatility and disruptions to their supply chain partners; however, it also decreases their recovery capacity by extending the time taken to return to normal. Firm attributes, along with workers' occupations, education, and experience, have an impact on the effect of WFH on firm resilience. This study enhances our understanding of shock transmission across supply chains and WFH as a source of firm resilience.

Presentations: City University of Hong Kong; IAAE 2024 (Xiamen University); UEA 2024 (Georgetown University); UEA 2025 (Humboldt University); ABFER 2025 (Poster Session)

Abstract: This paper studies the pricing of transportation services and the associated welfare implications. We develop a theoretical model to analyze two-part pricing by transportation service providers who face the backhaul problem and heterogeneous demands within and across regions. The model generates asymmetric transportation prices between regions and predicts that reductions in shipping costs lead to attenuated and unequal welfare gains. Using newly collected data from the largest platform for Chinese e-commerce delivery firms, we quantify the model and find that a universal 10% reduction in shipping costs leads the marginal delivery price to drop by 2.35%, the fixed fee to increase by 0.82%, delivery firms’ profit to increase by 1.17%, and e-commerce sellers’ welfare to rise by 0.34%, on average, with sellers in eastern and coastal cities gaining more than those in western and hinterland cities.