Nicholas Bloom

Nicholas Bloom is a professor at Stanford University whose research spans management practices, productivity, remote work, and the economics of firms. Before COVID-19, he conducted pioneering field experiments on remote work productivity at a Chinese call center, finding significant productivity gains. During the pandemic, he became the world's most referenced academic on remote and hybrid work patterns, tracking work arrangements through the SWAA survey and informing corporate and government policy on remote work. His research directly shaped how companies approach return-to-office decisions. His work on management quality as a driver of productivity differences across firms and across countries — showing through rigorous survey-based measurement that management practices explain a significant fraction of the gap in productivity between top-performing and median firms — has influenced thinking about what drives economic growth beyond traditional capital and labor inputs.