IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juecon/v123y2021ics0094119021000292.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Uber and traffic safety: Evidence from Brazilian cities

Author

Listed:
  • Barreto, Yuri
  • Silveira Neto, Raul da Mota
  • Carazza, Luis

Abstract

In this paper we estimate the causal effect of the introduction of Uber, an app designed to provide urban transportation services, on traffic-related fatalities and hospitalizations in Brazilian cities. Exploiting the staggered rollout of the company across cities, our research applies a difference-in-differences design and an event study specification using quarterly panel data from 2011 to 2016. Our results indicate that Uber’s introduction reduced by roughly 10% and 17%, respectively, traffic fatality and hospitalization rates in Brazilian cities. The results are robust to different specifications and falsification tests, and to the best of our knowledge, are the first estimates of this effect in a developing country.

Suggested Citation

  • Barreto, Yuri & Silveira Neto, Raul da Mota & Carazza, Luis, 2021. "Uber and traffic safety: Evidence from Brazilian cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:123:y:2021:i:c:s0094119021000292
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2021.103347
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119021000292
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jue.2021.103347?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clément de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultfœuille, 2020. "Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(9), pages 2964-2996, September.
    2. Lichtman-Sadot, Shirlee, 2019. "Can public transportation reduce accidents? Evidence from the introduction of late-night buses in Israeli cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 99-117.
    3. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    4. Ang, Amanda & Christensen, Peter & Vieira, Renato, 2020. "Should congested cities reduce their speed limits? Evidence from São Paulo, Brazil," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    5. Rayle, Lisa & Dai, Danielle & Chan, Nelson & Cervero, Robert & Shaheen, Susan, 2016. "Just a better taxi? A survey-based comparison of taxis, transit, and ridesourcing services in San Francisco," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 168-178.
    6. Louis S. Jacobson & Robert J. LaLonde & Daniel G. Sullivan, 1993. "Long-term earnings losses of high-seniority displaced workers," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 17(Nov), pages 2-20.
    7. Leon Moskatel & David Slusky, 2019. "Did UberX reduce ambulance volume?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 817-829, July.
    8. Gakenheimer, Ralph, 1999. "Urban mobility in the developing world," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 33(7-8), pages 671-689.
    9. Guilherme Mendes Resende & Ricardo Carvalho de Andrade Lima, 2018. "Evaluating The Competition Effects Of Uber’S Entry Into The Brazilian Incumbent Cab-Hailing App Segment," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 608-637.
    10. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    11. Jonathan Meer & Jeremy West, 2016. "Effects of the Minimum Wage on Employment Dynamics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(2), pages 500-522.
    12. Zhou, You, 2020. "Ride-sharing, alcohol consumption, and drunk driving," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    13. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    14. David H. Autor, 2003. "Outsourcing at Will: The Contribution of Unjust Dismissal Doctrine to the Growth of Employment Outsourcing," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-42, January.
    15. Gharad Bryan & Edward Glaeser & Nick Tsivanidis, 2019. "Cities in the Developing World," NBER Working Papers 26390, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Berger, Thor & Chen, Chinchih & Frey, Carl Benedikt, 2018. "Drivers of disruption? Estimating the Uber effect," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 197-210.
    17. repec:cdl:itsdav:qt82w2z91j is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Angela K. Dills & Sean E. Mulholland, 2018. "Ride‐Sharing, Fatal Crashes, and Crime," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 84(4), pages 965-991, April.
    19. repec:cdl:itsrrp:qt60v8r346 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Kutzbach, Mark J., 2009. "Motorization in developing countries: Causes, consequences, and effectiveness of policy options," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 154-166, March.
    21. Hall, Jonathan D. & Palsson, Craig & Price, Joseph, 2018. "Is Uber a substitute or complement for public transit?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 36-50.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cloud, Cannon & Heß, Simon & Kasinger, Johannes, 2023. "Shared e-scooter services and road safety: Evidence from six European countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lennon, Conor & Maclean, Johanna Catherine & Teltser, Keith, 2025. "Ridesharing and substance use disorder treatment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    2. Teltser, Keith & Lennon, Conor & Burgdorf, Jacob, 2021. "Do ridesharing services increase alcohol consumption?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Wang, Lisha & Pan, Minjie & Qian, Xinlei & Lv, Kangjuan, 2025. "Do specialized courts matter? Environmental judiciary and corporate emissions in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    4. Dong, Zhanyu & Cai, Jiayi & Li, Xuchao & Luan, Mengna, 2025. "Firm-level impacts and recovery dynamics following a public health crisis: Lessons from China’s SARS experience," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Zhou, You, 2020. "Ride-sharing, alcohol consumption, and drunk driving," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    6. Goodman-Bacon, Andrew, 2021. "Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 254-277.
    7. Callaway, Brantly & Karami, Sonia, 2023. "Treatment effects in interactive fixed effects models with a small number of time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(1), pages 184-208.
    8. Conor Lennon & Johanna Catherine Maclean & Keith F. Teltser, 2024. "Ridesharing and Substance Use Disorder Treatment," NBER Working Papers 33077, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Gonçalves, S. & Rodrigues, T.P. & Chagas, A.L.S., 2020. "The impact of wind power on the Brazilian labor market," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    10. Bas Scheer & Wiljan van den Berge & Maarten Goos & Alan Manning & Anna Salomons, 2022. "Alternative Work Arrangements and Worker Outcomes: Evidence from Payrolling," CPB Discussion Paper 435, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    11. Tan, Ruipeng & Hou, Ke & Wu, Huaqing, 2025. "The cost of biodiversity protection: National Key Ecological Functional Zone and labor demand in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    12. Simon Freyaldenhoven & Christian Hansen & Jorge Perez Perez & Jesse Shapiro, 2021. "Visualization, Identification, and stimation in the Linear Panel Event-Study Design," Working Papers 21-44, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    13. Carranza, Rafael & Prieto, Joaquín & Sehnbruch, Kirsten, 2025. "Job loss and earnings inequality: Distributional effects of formal re-employment in Chile," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1020-1036.
    14. Casagrande, Dieison & Emanuel, Lucas & Freitas, Carlos & Lima, Alex & Nishimura, Fábio & Oliveira, Felipe, 2024. "Public food procurement and production: Evidence of the food acquisition program in Brazil," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    15. Paul Bingley & Lorenzo Cappellari & Marco Ovidi, 2023. "When it hurts the most: timing of parental job loss and a child’s education," LISER Working Paper Series 2023-12, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    16. Guo, Xue & Cheng, Aaron & Pavlou, Paul A., 2024. "Skill-biased technical change, again? Online gig platforms and local employment," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124538, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Callaway, Brantly & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C., 2021. "Difference-in-Differences with multiple time periods," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 200-230.
    18. Valente, Marica, 2023. "Policy evaluation of waste pricing programs using heterogeneous causal effect estimation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    19. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Clarke, Damian & Gomes, Joseph & Venkataramani, Atheendar, 2018. "Maternal Mortality and Women's Political Participation," IZA Discussion Papers 11590, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Zhang, Jingxue & Yu, Shiwei & Zhang, Yue-Jun & Su, Bin & Sun, Ya-Fang, 2025. "How do renewable energy policies affect energy green development? Evidence from Chinese listed energy firms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • R4 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:123:y:2021:i:c:s0094119021000292. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622905 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.