SI 2018 IT and Digitization

Erik Brynjolfsson, Shane Greenstein, Susan Athey, and Hal R. Varian, Organizers

July 19-20, 2018


Ballroom

Royal Sonesta Hotel, 40 Edwin H. Land Blvd., Cambridge, MA

Conference Code of Conduct

Thursday, July 19
8:30 am
Coffee and Pastries
9:00 am
Introductions
9:10 am
Cody Cook, Stanford University
Rebecca Diamond, Stanford University and NBER
Jonathan Hall, Uber
John A. List, University of Chicago and NBER
Paul Oyer, Stanford University and NBER

The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence from over a Million Rideshare Drivers
Discussant: Judith A. Chevalier, Yale University and NBER
9:50 am
Lynn Wu, University of Pennsylvania
Bowen Lou, University of Connecticut
Lorin Hitt, University of Pennsylvania

Data Analytics Supports Decentralized Innovation Communities
Discussant: Kristina McElheran, University of Toronto
10:30 am
Break
10:50 am
Patrick Bajari
Victor Chernozhukov, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ali Hortaçsu, University of Chicago and NBER
Junichi Suzuki, Amazon, Inc.

The Impact of Big Data on Firm Performance: An Empirical Investigation
Discussant: Avi Goldfarb, University of Toronto and NBER
11:30 am
Brian McManus, University of North Carolina
Aviv Nevo, University of Pennsylvania and NBER
Zachary Nolan, University of Delaware
Jonathan W. Williams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Steering Incentives and Bundling Practices in the Telecommunications Industry
Discussant: Jeffrey Prince, Indiana University
12:10 pm
Lunch
1:10 pm
Sofia Amaral-Garcia, European Commission - Joint Research Center/ Universite libre de Bruxe
Mattia Nardotto, KU Leuven
Carol Propper, Imperial College London
Tommaso Valletti, Imperial College London

Does the Internet improve health care? Evidence from the UK
Discussant: Amalia R. Miller, University of Virginia and NBER
1:50 pm
Break
Parallel Sessions in Ballroom and Skyline Rooms
2:00 pm
Ballroom
Michael Kummer, University of East Anglia
Ulrich Laitenberger, Telecom ParisTech and ZEW
Olga Slivko, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
Steffen VIete, ZEW

Unemployment and Online Labor
Discussant: Prasanna Tambe, University of Pennsylvania
2:00 pm
Skyline
Sudheer Chava, Georgia Tech
Alex Oettl, Georgia Institute of Technology and NBER
Manpreet Singh, Georgia Institute of Technology
Linghang Zeng, Babson College

The Dark Side of Technological Progress? Impact of E-Commerce on Employees at Brick-and-Mortar Retailers
Discussant: Emek Basker, U.S. Census Bureau
2:30 pm
Ballroom
Arindrajit Dube, University of Massachusetts Amherst and NBER
Jeff Jacobs, Columbia University
Suresh Naidu, Columbia University and NBER
Siddharth Suri, Microsoft Research, NYC

Monopsony in Online Labor Markets (slides)
Discussant: Chiara Farronato, Harvard University and NBER
2:30 pm
Skyline
Rachel Soloveichik, Bureau of Economic Analysis

How E-Commerce Improves the Brick and Mortar Shopping Experience: Explaining the Post-2002 Slowdown (slides)
Discussant: Ryan C. McDevitt, Duke University and NBER
3:00 pm
Ballroom
Mara Faccio, Purdue University and NBER
John J. McConnell, Purdue University

Death by Pokémon GO: The Economic and Human Cost of Using Apps While Driving
Discussant: Joel Waldfogel, University of Minnesota and NBER
3:00 pm
Skyline
Sara Calligaris, OECD
Chiara Criscuolo, IFC
Luca Marcolin, OECD

Mark-ups in the Digital Era
Discussant: Christopher M. Snyder, Dartmouth College and NBER
3:30 pm
Break
3:40 pm
Ballroom
Frank Nagle, Harvard University

The Impact of Technology Procurement Regulations on Social Value and National Competitiveness
Discussant: Abhishek Nagaraj, University of California, Berkeley and NBER
3:40 pm
Skyline
Francesco Decarolis, Bocconi University
Gabriele Rovigatti, Bank of Italy

Concentration and Internet Advertising: The Rise of Buyer Power
Discussant: Garrett Johnson, Boston University
4:10 pm
Ballroom
Yuchen Zhang, Tulane University
Jingjing Li, University of Virginia
Tony W. Tong, University of Colorado at Boulder

Platform Governance Matters: How Platform Gatekeeping Affects Knowledge Sharing among Complementors
Discussant: Joshua S. Gans, University of Toronto and NBER
4:10 pm
Skyline
Joseph Golden, PerfectRec.com
John Horton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER

The Effects of Search Advertising on Competitors: An Experiment Before a Merger
Discussant: Florian Zettelmeyer, Northwestern University and NBER
4:40 pm
Ballroom
Maria Lucia Del Carpio, INSEAD
Maria Guadalupe, INSEAD

More Women in Tech? Evidence from a Field Experiment Addressing Social Identity
Discussant: Anja Lambrecht, London Business School
4:40 pm
Skyline
Eduardo M. Azevedo, University of Pennsylvania
Alex Deng, Microsoft Corporation
Jose L. Montiel Olea, Columbia University
Justin Rao, HomeAway
Glen Weyl, Microsoft

A/B Testing
Discussant: Ya Xu, LinkedIn Corporation
5:10 pm
Adjourn
6:00 pm
Group Dinner - Hotel Marlowe (Serrano Ballroom)
Friday, July 20
8:30 am
Coffee and Pastries
First two papers joint with Industrial Organization
9:00 am
Alejandro Molnar, The World Bank
Daniel Mangrum, Federal Reserve Bank of New York

The Marginal Congestion of a Taxi in New York City
Discussant: Thomas N. Hubbard, Northwestern University and NBER
9:45 am
Meng Liu, Washington University in St. Louis
Erik Brynjolfsson, Stanford University and NBER
Jason Dowlatabadi, Uber

Do Digital Platforms Reduce Moral Hazard? The Case of Taxis and Uber
Discussant: M. Keith Chen, University of California at Los Angeles
10:30 am
Break
10:50 am
John Horton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
Ramesh Johari, Stanford University

Engineering a Separating Equilibrium
Discussant: Hema Yoganarasimhan, University of Washington
11:30 am
Pascual Restrepo, Boston University and NBER
Daron Acemoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER

Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Work
Discussant: Luis Garicano, London School of Economics
12:15 pm
Lunch
1:10 pm
Panel: The Economic Implications of Autonomous Vehicles
Moderator: Susan Athey, Stanford University and NBER
Jonathan Hall, Uber
Susan Helper, Case Western Reserve University and NBER (background paper)
John Leonard, Toyota Research Institute and MIT
1:55 pm
Break
2:10 pm
Klaus Ackermann, Monash University
Simon D. Angus, Monash University
Roland Hodler, University of St.Gallen
Paul Raschky, Monash University

The Effect of Internet on Political Mobilization
Discussant: Simon Johnson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
2:50 pm
Break
3:05 pm
Tomomichi Amano, Harvard University
Andrew Rhodes, Toulouse School of Economics
Stephan Seiler, Imperial College London

Large-scale Demand Estimation with Search Data
Discussant: Ben Shiller, Brandeis University
3:45 pm
Break and Poster set-up
4:00 pm
Poster Session (Ballroom Lobby)
Tingting Nian, University of California at Irvine
Lei Xu, Bank of Canada
Sanjeev Dewan, University of California Irvine

Can (S)he Code? Gender Bias in an Open Source Software Community
Imke C. Reimers, Cornell University
Ben Shiller, Brandeis University

Proprietary Data, Competition, and Consumer Effort: An Application to Telematics in Auto Insurance
Yanhui Wu, University of Hong Kong
Feng Zhu, Harvard University

Competition, Contracts, and Creativity: Evidence from Novel Writing in a Platform Market
Jorge Mejia, Indiana University
Chris Parker, American University

When Transparency Fails: Bias and Financial Incentives in Ridesharing Platforms
Luis Aguiar, University of Zurich
Joel Waldfogel, University of Minnesota and NBER

Platforms, Power, and Preferential Placement: Evidence from Spotify Playlists
Saher Asad, George Washington University

How Important is Coordination for Perishable Commodity Markets? Evidence from Micro-Transactions in Agricultural Markets in Pakistan
Ho Cheung Brian Lee, Penn State University

To Hide or Not to Hide? An Empirical Study on the Effect of Firm Identity on the Dynamics of Crowdsourcing
Ioana Marinescu, University of Pennsylvania and NBER
Nadav Klein, University of Chicago
Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor, Inc.
Morgan Smart, Facebook

Incentives Can Reduce Bias in Online Reviews
Andreas Fuster, EPFL and Swiss Finance Institute
Matthew C. Plosser, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Philipp Schnabl, New York University and NBER
James Vickery, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

The Role of Technology in Mortgage Lending
Daniel Bjorkegren, Columbia University

Competition in Network Industries: Evidence from Mobile Telecommunications in Rwanda
Pat Akey, University of Toronto
Stefan Lewellen, Pennsylvania State University
Inessa Liskovich, AirBnB

Hacking Corporate Reputations
Alex W. Chernoff, Bank of Canada

The Scale and Scope of Online Retail
Shrabastee Banerjee, Boston University
Chrysanthos Dellarocas, Boston University
Georgios Zervas, Boston University

Interacting User-Generated Content Technologies: How Q&As Affect Ratings and Reviews
5:15 pm
Reception