IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ejw/journl/v12y2015i3p360-374.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ideology Ãœber Alles? Economics Bloggers on Uber, Lyft, and Other Transportation Network Companies

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy Horpedahl

Abstract

In recent years several new ‘transportation network companies’ (TNCs), such as Uber and Lyft, have emerged, competing with traditional taxicabs. In most U.S. cities, taxicab markets operate implicitly or explicitly as a cartel, and new services pose an economic challenge to them. The motivation and moral of the paper is predicated on a belief that is not defended in the paper, namely the belief that such government-created cartels are undesirable. Here I survey the coverage by economics blogs of the TNCs, with specific emphasis on whether bloggers highlight the consumer benefits from the new competition. One of the main results is that very few vocal left-leaning U.S. academic economics bloggers have had anything at all positive to say about Uber and Lyft: most are silent, some are ambivalent, and a few are outright hostile.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy Horpedahl, 2015. "Ideology Ãœber Alles? Economics Bloggers on Uber, Lyft, and Other Transportation Network Companies," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 12(3), pages 360–374-3, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:12:y:2015:i:3:p:360-374
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/File+download/886/HorpedahlSept2015.pdf?mimetype=pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/999
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan V. Hall & Alan B. Krueger, 2015. "An Analysis of the Labor Market for Uber's Driver-Partners in the United States," Working Papers 587, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Gordon Tullock, 1975. "The Transitional Gains Trap," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 6(2), pages 671-678, Autumn.
    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. Watanabe, Chihiro & Naveed, Kashif & Neittaanmäki, Pekka, 2016. "Co-evolution of three mega-trends nurtures un-captured GDP – Uber’s ride-sharing revolution," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 164-185.
    2. Valeria Andreoni, 2020. "The Trap of Success: A Paradox of Scale for Sharing Economy and Degrowth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-17, April.
    3. Qipeng Sun & Yuqi He & Yongjie Wang & Fei Ma, 2019. "Evolutionary Game between Government and Ride-Hailing Platform: Evidence from China," Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society, Hindawi, vol. 2019, pages 1-14, January.
    4. Murillo, David & Buckland, Heloise & Val, Esther, 2017. "When the sharing economy becomes neoliberalism on steroids: Unravelling the controversies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 66-76.

    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. Scott Duke Kominers & Alexander Teytelboym & Vincent P Crawford, 2017. "An invitation to market design," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(4), pages 541-571.
    2. Wang, Wei & Miao, Wei & Liu, Yongdong & Deng, Yiting & Cao, Yunfei, 2022. "The impact of COVID-19 on the ride-sharing industry and its recovery: Causal evidence from China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 128-141.
    3. Xu, Zhengtian & Yin, Yafeng & Zha, Liteng, 2017. "Optimal parking provision for ride-sourcing services," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 559-578.
    4. Emmanuelle Reuter, 2022. "Hybrid business models in the sharing economy: The role of business model design for managing the environmental paradox," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 603-618, February.
    5. 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.
    6. Hughes, Ryan & MacKenzie, Don, 2016. "Transportation network company wait times in Greater Seattle, and relationship to socioeconomic indicators," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 36-44.
    7. Peter Boettke, 2017. "Robert Tollison and operationalizing public choice," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 17-22, April.
    8. de Pedraza, Pablo & Vollbracht, Ian, 2020. "The Semicircular Flow of the Data Economy and the Data Sharing Laffer curve," GLO Discussion Paper Series 515, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. William F. Shughart II, 1999. "The Reformer’s Dilemma," Public Finance Review, , vol. 27(5), pages 561-565, September.
    10. Stephen Morris & Stephen Coate, 1999. "Policy Persistence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1327-1336, December.
    11. Çetin, Tamer & Yasin Eryigit, Kadir, 2013. "The economic effects of government regulation: Evidence from the New York taxicab market," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 169-177.
    12. Joshua Hall & Amanda Ross & Christopher Yencha, 2015. "The political economy of the Essential Air Service program," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 147-164, October.
    13. Kosfeld, Michael, 2002. "Why shops close again: An evolutionary perspective on the deregulation of shopping hours," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 51-72, January.
    14. J. Mark Ramseyer, 2020. "Nuclear reactors in Japan: Who asks for them, what do they do?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 7-32, February.
    15. E. Frank Stephenson & Erin E. Wendt, 2009. "Occupational Licensing: Scant Treatment in Labor Texts," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 6(2), pages 181-194, May.
    16. Bauer, Johannes M., 2018. "The Internet and income inequality: Socio-economic challenges in a hyperconnected society," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 333-343.
    17. Sutirtha Bagchi, 2018. "A Tale of Two Cities: An Examination of Medallion Prices in New York and Chicago," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 53(2), pages 295-319, September.
    18. Diana W. Thomas, 2009. "Deregulation despite transitional gains," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(3), pages 329-340, September.
    19. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2016. "Economic freedom and economic crises," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 11-23.
    20. Dwight R. Lee & J. R. Clark, 2018. "Can behavioral economists improve economic rationality?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 23-40, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    transitional gains trap; taxi; cartel;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • R4 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics

    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:ejw:journl:v:12:y:2015:i:3:p:360-374. 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: Jason Briggeman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edgmuus.html .

    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.