Geographic Mobility, Immobility, and Geographic Flexibility: A Review and Agenda for Research on the Changing Geography of Work

Abstract

In this review, I integrate a wide range of literature that has examined how the “geographic mobility” of high-skilled workers creates value for organizations and individuals. Drawing on this interdisciplinary literature, I document that it creates value by facilitating the transfer and recombination of knowledge, transfer of social capital, organizational norms, and financial capital, as well as by creating opportunities for individuals to develop skills, seek resources, and experience wage increases. I also review the literature around “geographic immobility” and synthesize this body of research under a framework of “geographic mobility frictions” that constrain and add costs to geographic mobility. I enumerate four key types of frictions—regulatory frictions, occupational/organizational frictions, personal frictions, and economic/environmental frictions—that act as impediments to geographic mobility. I then propose a research agenda around studying whether and how provisioning “geographic flexibility” through “work-from-anywhere” policies might help individuals and firms capture value from geographic mobility and mitigate adverse effects of geographic mobility frictions. I also outline future research questions related to how adoption of geographic flexibility might alter future patterns of geographic mobility, and the future geography of work.