Racial discrimination in transportation network companies
In a randomized audit study, we sent passengers in Boston, MA on nearly 1000 rides on controlled routes using the Uber and Lyft smartphone apps, recording key performance metrics. Passengers randomly selected between accounts that used African American-sounding and white-sounding names. We find that...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier BV
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130158 |
| _version_ | 1826196367422259200 |
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| author | Ge, Yanbo Knittel, Christopher Roland MacKenzie, Don Zoepf, Stephen |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Ge, Yanbo Knittel, Christopher Roland MacKenzie, Don Zoepf, Stephen |
| author_sort | Ge, Yanbo |
| collection | MIT |
| description | In a randomized audit study, we sent passengers in Boston, MA on nearly 1000 rides on controlled routes using the Uber and Lyft smartphone apps, recording key performance metrics. Passengers randomly selected between accounts that used African American-sounding and white-sounding names. We find that the probability an Uber driver accepts a ride, sees the name, and then cancels doubles when passengers used the account attached to the African American-sounding name. In contrast, Lyft drivers observe the name before accepting a ride and, as expected, we find no effect of name on cancellations. We do not, however, find that the increase in cancellations leads to measurably longer wait times for Uber. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:25:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/130158 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:25:47Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Elsevier BV |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1301582022-10-25T04:29:40Z Racial discrimination in transportation network companies Ge, Yanbo Knittel, Christopher Roland MacKenzie, Don Zoepf, Stephen Sloan School of Management In a randomized audit study, we sent passengers in Boston, MA on nearly 1000 rides on controlled routes using the Uber and Lyft smartphone apps, recording key performance metrics. Passengers randomly selected between accounts that used African American-sounding and white-sounding names. We find that the probability an Uber driver accepts a ride, sees the name, and then cancels doubles when passengers used the account attached to the African American-sounding name. In contrast, Lyft drivers observe the name before accepting a ride and, as expected, we find no effect of name on cancellations. We do not, however, find that the increase in cancellations leads to measurably longer wait times for Uber. 2021-03-17T15:10:56Z 2021-03-17T15:10:56Z 2020-10 2019-12 2021-03-15T17:07:37Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0047-2727 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130158 Ge, Yanbo et al. "Racial discrimination in transportation network companies." Journal of Public Economics 170 (October 2020): 104205 © 2020 Elsevier B.V. en http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104205 Journal of Public Economics Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier BV Prof. Knittel |
| spellingShingle | Ge, Yanbo Knittel, Christopher Roland MacKenzie, Don Zoepf, Stephen Racial discrimination in transportation network companies |
| title | Racial discrimination in transportation network companies |
| title_full | Racial discrimination in transportation network companies |
| title_fullStr | Racial discrimination in transportation network companies |
| title_full_unstemmed | Racial discrimination in transportation network companies |
| title_short | Racial discrimination in transportation network companies |
| title_sort | racial discrimination in transportation network companies |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130158 |
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