Peer-to-peer markets, collectively known as the sharing economy, have emerged as alternative suppliers of goods and services traditionally provided by long-established industries. A central question regards the impact of these sharing economy platforms on incumbent firms. We study the case of Airbnb, specifically analyzing Airbnb’s entry into the short-term accommodation market in Texas and its impact on the incumbent hotel industry. We first explore Airbnb’s impact on hotel revenue, by using a difference- in-differences empirical strategy that exploits the significant spatiotemporal variation in the patterns of Airbnb adoption across city-level markets. We estimate that in Austin, where Airbnb supply is highest, the causal impact on hotel revenue is in the 8-10% range; moreover, the impact is non-uniformly distributed, with lower-priced hotels and those hotels not catering to business travelers being the most affected. We find that this impact materializes through less aggressive hotel room pricing, an impact that benefits all consumers, not just participants in the sharing economy. The impact on hotel prices is especially pronounced during periods of peak demand, such as SXSW. We find that by enabling supply to scale – a differentiating feature of peer-to-peer platforms – Airbnb has significantly crimped hotels’ ability to raise prices during periods of peak demand. Our work provides empirical evidence that the sharing economy is making inroads by successfully competing with, differentiating from, and acquiring market share from incumbent firms.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2872361_code1846454.pdf?abstractid=2366898&mirid=1

The Rise of the Sharing Economy: Estimating the Impact of Airbnb on the Hotel Industry

Peer-to-peer markets, collectively known as the sharing economy, have emerged as alternative suppliers of goods and services traditionally provided by long-established industries. The authors explore the economic impact of the sharing economy on incumbent firms by studying the case of Airbnb, a prominent platform for short-term accommodations. They analyze Airbnb’s entry into the state of Texas and quantify its impact on the Texas hotel industry over the subsequent decade. In Austin, where Airbnb supply is highest, the causal impact on hotel revenue is in the 8%–10% range; moreover, the impact is nonuniform, with lower-priced hotels and hotels that do not cater to business travelers being the most affected. The impact manifests itself primarily through less aggressive hotel room pricing, benefiting all consumers, not just participants in the sharing economy. The price response is especially pronounced during periods of peak demand, such as during the South by Southwest festival, and is due to a di...

/pdf/the-rise-of-the-sharing-economy-estimating-the-impact-of-rssa2tpbnf.pdf

City planning and population health: a global challenge

Experts predict that new automobiles will be capable of driving themselves under limited conditions within 5–10 years, and under most conditions within 10–20 years. Automation may affect road vehicle energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a host of ways, positive and negative, by causing changes in travel demand, vehicle design, vehicle operating profiles, and choices of fuels. In this paper, we identify specific mechanisms through which automation may affect travel and energy demand and resulting GHG emissions and bring them together using a coherent energy decomposition framework. We review the literature for estimates of the energy impacts of each mechanism and, where the literature is lacking, develop our own estimates using engineering and economic analysis. We consider how widely applicable each mechanism is, and quantify the potential impact of each mechanism on a common basis: the percentage change it is expected to cause in total GHG emissions from light-duty or heavy-duty vehicles in the U.S. Our primary focus is travel related energy consumption and emissions, since potential lifecycle impacts are generally smaller in magnitude. We explore the net effects of automation on emissions through several illustrative scenarios, finding that automation might plausibly reduce road transport GHG emissions and energy use by nearly half – or nearly double them – depending on which effects come to dominate. We also find that many potential energy-reduction benefits may be realized through partial automation, while the major energy/emission downside risks appear more likely at full automation. We close by presenting some implications for policymakers and identifying priority areas for further research.

/pdf/help-or-hindrance-the-travel-energy-and-carbon-impacts-of-4552l0f6o0.pdf

Help or hindrance? The travel, energy and carbon impacts of highly automated vehicles

Embedded Case Study Methods: Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Knowledge

Informal transport: A global perspective

Four years after the introduction of City CarShare in the San Francisco, Bay area in California, 29% of carshare members had gotten rid of one or more cars, and 4.8% of members' trips and 5.4% of their vehicle miles traveled were in carshare vehicles. Matched-pair comparisons with a statistical control group suggest that, over time, members have reduced total vehicular travel. However, most declines occurred during the first 1 to 2 years of the program; 3 to 4 years after City CarShare's inauguration, earlier declines had leveled off. Because many carshare vehicles are small and fuel-efficient but can carry several people, the trend in per capita gasoline consumption also is downward. Mindful of the cumulative costs of driving, carshare members appear to have become more judicious and selective when deciding whether to drive, take public transit, walk, bike, or even forgo a trip. Coupled with reduced personal car ownership, these factors have given rise to a resourceful form of automobility in the San Fra...

City CarShare: Longer-Term Travel Demand and Car Ownership Impacts

Transportation improvements inevitably lead to an uneven distribution of user benefits, in space and by network type (private and public transport). This paper makes a moral argument for what would be a fair distribution of these benefits. The argument follows Walzer’s “Spheres of Justice” approach to define the benefits of transportation, access, as a sphere deserving a separate, non-market driven, distribution. That distribution, we propose, is one where the maximum gap between the lowest and highest accessibility, both by mode and in space, should be limited, while attempting to maximize average access. We then review transportation planning practice for a priori distributional goals and find little explicit guidance in conventional and even justice-oriented transportation planning and analyses. We end with a discussion of the implications for practice.

/pdf/a-justice-theoretic-approach-to-the-distribution-of-3i5o7osj42.pdf

A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States

Using principles of justice to assess the modal equity of regional transportation plans

A long history of overt discrimination left an enduring racialized imprint upon the geography of the East Bay. While the benefits of a metropolitan decentralization of jobs, housing, and public investment fell to Whites, discrimination in employment and housing trapped African Americans in urban neighborhoods burdened by infrastructure encroachment and divestment. By circa 1970, overt discrimination succumbed to new, racially neutral, legal, and administrative forms, including regional planning processes. Using an environmental racism framework, we show that these new forms reproduced the existing racialized geography by means of new inequalities in representation and transportation service provision. These new regional transportation policies, like those challenged by a 2005 civil rights lawsuit, favored the mobility needs of more affluent suburbanites over those of African American East Bay bus riders. These policies, layered onto an existing racialized geography, reinforced existing inequaliti...

Aaron Golub

Papers

Informal transport: A global perspective

City CarShare: Longer-Term Travel Demand and Car Ownership Impacts

A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States

Using principles of justice to assess the modal equity of regional transportation plans

Race, Space, and Struggles for Mobility: Transportation Impacts on African Americans in Oakland and the East Bay