Events

Karim Lakhani and Jackie Lane are hosting a new seminar series at Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard (D^3)’s LISH, spotlighting how Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies are transforming business and society. This is the third seminar in this series Speaker: Ashesh RambachanSilverman (1968) Family Career Development Assistant Professor of Economics, MIT Date and Time: […]

Karim Lakhani and Jackie Lane are hosting a new seminar series at Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard (D^3)’s LISH, spotlighting how Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies are transforming business and society. This is the third seminar in this series Speaker: Amir SaririAssistant professor of strategic management at Purdue University, Visiting Scholar at MIT Sloan […]

Karim Lakhani and Jackie Lane are hosting a new seminar series at Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard (D^3)’s LISH, spotlighting how Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies are transforming business and society. This is the second seminar in this series Speaker: Nataliya KosmynaResearch Scientist | MIT Media Lab Date and Time: November 18, 2025 | […]

Karim Lakhani and Jackie Lane are hosting a new seminar series at Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard (D^3)’s LISH, spotlighting how Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies are transforming business and society. This is the first seminar in this series Speaker: Sendhil MullainathanProfessor, Dual Appointment in Economics and EECS, Research Affiliate, Stone Center on Inequality […]

Firm Productivity and Learning in the Digital Economy: Evidence from Cloud Computing Date: December 4, 2024Presenter: Mert Demirer, MIT Sloan School of Management Abstract:Computing technologies have become critical inputs to production in the modern firm. However, there is little large-scale evidence on how efficiently firms use these technologies. In this paper, we study firm productivity […]

We study how home sellers and buyers interact with Zillow's Zestimate algorithm throughout the sales cycle of residential properties, with an emphasis on the implications of such interactions. In particular, leveraging Zestimate's algorithm updates as exogenous shocks, we find evidence for a human-algorithm feedback loop: listing and selling outcomes respond significantly to Zestimate, and Zestimate is quickly updated for the focal and comparable homes after a property is listed or sold. This raises a concern that housing market disturbances may propagate and persist because of the feedback loop. However, simulation suggests that disturbances are short-lived and diminish eventually, mainly because all marginal effects across stages of the selling process---though sizable and significant---are less than one.

Information about the number of applicants to a job vacancy might simultaneously signal the degree of competition and vacancy quality. We study how this information affects job search. To do so, we conduct three experiments on a large online job platform in which the treatment varies what information is shown to job seekers. Information about the number of prior applicants to a vacancy increases the number of applications and redirects them to vacancies with few prior applications. Information about vacancy age increases application rates, especially to new vacancies.

n this paper, using a novel data set of resumes from approximately 16 million individuals from the United States, we study the career implications of automation and robotization. We calculate the lifetime career value of various occupations, combining (1) the likelihood of future transitions to other occupations, and (2) earning potential of these occupations. We document a downward trend in the growth of career values in the U.S. between 2000 and 2016. We find that while wage growth is slower, the decline in the average career value growth is mainly due to reduced upward occupational mobility. Automation and robotization are factors contributing to the decline of average local labor market career values. In commuting zones that have been more exposed to automation, the average career value has declined further between 2000 and 2016.

This paper evaluates caps on the commissions that food delivery platforms charge to restaurants. Commission caps may lead restaurants to join platforms and to post lower prices on platforms, thereby benefitting consumers. But caps may also lead platforms to raise their consumer fees, thereby reducing ordering on platforms and consequently platforms’ value to restaurants. The net welfare effects of caps are thus uncertain. To quantify these effects, I estimate a model of pricing and platform adoption in a multi-sided market using data on consumer restaurant orders, restaurants’ platform adoption, and platform fees. Counterfactual simulations imply that commission caps bolster restaurant profits at the expense of consumers and platforms.

In this talk, we explore the Keyword Recommender System (KRS) and consider its impact on sales volumes and market concentration. Unlike traditional, item-level recommenders, KRSs facilitate search query formation with potentially positive or negative consequences for search costs, resultant product fit, transaction volumes, and consumption diversity. We explore these effects via a randomized field experiment conducted with one of the largest mobile food-delivery platforms in Asia. The results of this experiment show that providing consumers with access to a KRS leads to a 1.2% rise in purchases over a 30-day period. Furthermore, access to a KRS leads to increased sales diversity, at both the individual and market levels.

While many studies have examined contributors’ participation in open source software (OSS) communities, limited attention has been paid to the quality of their contribution. We build on von Hippel and von Krogh’s (2003) idea of private benefits and develop a model to examine how new comer contributors’ decisions regarding i) continued participation and ii) effort investment (in subsequent contribution) are affected by their beliefs about the private benefits they expect to obtain, and how the formation of such beliefs depends on their initial interactions with project gatekeepers.

Catherine Thomas at the London School of Economics will discuss her study on the magnitude and distribution of surplus in an online labor market for the knowledge worker gig economy.