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Interference, Bias, and Variance in Two-Sided Marketplace Experimentation: Guidance for Platforms

Author

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  • Hannah Li
  • Geng Zhao
  • Ramesh Johari
  • Gabriel Y. Weintraub

Abstract

Two-sided marketplace platforms often run experiments to test the effect of an intervention before launching it platform-wide. A typical approach is to randomize individuals into the treatment group, which receives the intervention, and the control group, which does not. The platform then compares the performance in the two groups to estimate the effect if the intervention were launched to everyone. We focus on two common experiment types, where the platform randomizes individuals either on the supply side or on the demand side. The resulting estimates of the treatment effect in these experiments are typically biased: because individuals in the market compete with each other, individuals in the treatment group affect those in the control group and vice versa, creating interference. We develop a simple tractable market model to study bias and variance in these experiments with interference. We focus on two choices available to the platform: (1) Which side of the platform should it randomize on (supply or demand)? (2) What proportion of individuals should be allocated to treatment? We find that both choices affect the bias and variance of the resulting estimators but in different ways. The bias-optimal choice of experiment type depends on the relative amounts of supply and demand in the market, and we discuss how a platform can use market data to select the experiment type. Importantly, we find in many circumstances, choosing the bias-optimal experiment type has little effect on variance. On the other hand, the choice of treatment proportion can induce a bias-variance tradeoff, where the bias-minimizing proportion increases variance. We discuss how a platform can navigate this tradeoff and best choose the treatment proportion, using a combination of modeling as well as contextual knowledge about the market, the risk of the intervention, and reasonable effect sizes of the intervention.

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  • Hannah Li & Geng Zhao & Ramesh Johari & Gabriel Y. Weintraub, 2021. "Interference, Bias, and Variance in Two-Sided Marketplace Experimentation: Guidance for Platforms," Papers 2104.12222, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2104.12222
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Charles F. Manski, 2013. "Identification of treatment response with social interactions," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 16(1), pages 1-23, February.
    2. Susan Athey & Dean Eckles & Guido W. Imbens, 2018. "Exact p-Values for Network Interference," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(521), pages 230-240, January.
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    4. Ramesh Johari & Hannah Li & Inessa Liskovich & Gabriel Weintraub, 2020. "Experimental Design in Two-Sided Platforms: An Analysis of Bias," Papers 2002.05670, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    5. David Holtz & Sinan Aral, 2020. "Limiting Bias from Test-Control Interference in Online Marketplace Experiments," Papers 2004.12162, arXiv.org.
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    7. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881.
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    Cited by:

    1. Iavor Bojinov & David Simchi-Levi & Jinglong Zhao, 2023. "Design and Analysis of Switchback Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 3759-3777, July.

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