Do ride-hailing platforms like Uber, Lyft always create traffic congestion?
Despite their promise, popularity, and rapid growth, the transit implications of ride-hailing platforms (e.g., Uber, Lyft) are not altogether clear. On the one hand, ride-hailing services can provide pooling (i.e., traffic reductions) advantages by efficiently matching customer demand (i.e., trips) with resources (i.e., cars) or by facilitating car-sharing. On the other hand, ride-hailing may also induce extra travel because of increased convenience and travel mode substitution, which may create crowding (i.e., traffic increases). We seek to reconcile these divergent perspectives here, exploring the heterogeneous determinants of ride-hailing’s effects. Taking advantage of Uber’s staggered entry into various geographic markets in California, we execute a regression-based difference-in-differences analysis to estimate the impact of ride-hailing services on traffic volumes. Using monthly micro data from more than 9,000 vehicle detector station units deployed across California, we show that Uber’s effect (either pooling or crowding) on traffic depends on various contextual factors.
We find some evidence of pooling effects on weekdays; however, Uber’s entry leads to significant crowding effects on weekends. Furthermore, the crowding effect is amplified on interior roads and in areas characterized by high population density. Although ride-hailing seems to have a substitution effect on public transportation, we find ride-hailing services may have a complementary effect for carpooling users. Finally, we show that premium ride-hailing services (e.g., Uber Black) almost exclusively lead to a crowding effect. We conduct a battery of robustness tests (e.g., propensity score matching, alternative treatment approaches, placebo tests) to ensure the consistency of our findings.
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That Easy? How Frequent Reminders Improve Energy Efficiency Adoption…
Important discretionary tasks such as quality improvement, process compliance, and energy efficiency (EE) require constantly focusing the attention of decision-makers. Using a combination of archival data analysis and a field study, we show how nudges in the form of reminders can serve as a simple yet powerful managerial lever to focus attention on such tasks and increase the likelihood that these tasks will be completed. We study the effectiveness of reminders in the context of EE tasks in manufacturing facilities. Technical assistance programs make EE recommendations to participating manufacturing sites and remind them regularly to pay attention to implementation. Our analysis shows that these reminders lead to a more widespread implementation of EE improvement suggestions and are particularly useful when facilities undertake multiple EE tasks in parallel, or when other unrelated sustainability tasks are being pursued in parallel. Next, we conduct a field study by leveraging a policy intervention called “Touchbase Tuesdays” that was implemented by our partner organization based on the results from our analysis. This field study provides additional causal evidence of the effect of reminders on EE task implementation. Overall, we observe that simple reminders can deliver substantial increases in task implementation rates in this context.
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Return of Humans? How Human Agents make Online Reuse Markets more efficient…
We examine the importance of humans (i.e., expert services) in Online Materials and Waste Exchanges (OMWEs), which are online B2B markets for coordinating transactions of industrial surplus, by-products and waste. OMWEs face unique challenges due to their product-mix and market characteristics. Many OMWEs have traditionally relied on a combination of routine services (online aggregation, filtered search etc.) and expert services (selective and spatial matching, contract facilitation etc.). While OMWEs employ varying levels of expert services, the ultimate value of expert services in promoting transactions is not fully understood. From a managerial perspective, our study provides insights into the importance of balancing routine and expert services, offering guidance on when expert services offer the most benefits. From an academic perspective, we expand on the type of product and market attributes that should be considered in tailoring OMWE designs. We use transactional data from a unique OMWE setting (MNExchange.Org), which consists of approximately 3500 product listings from 700+ supplier firms, collected during 2001-2007. We use various econometric techniques (survival analysis, regression discontinuity etc.) to examine the changes in performance, including transaction rates and time to market, attributable to an Operational Policy Change that occurred in 2004. We further conduct a detailed examination of mechanisms, alternative explanations and counterfactual analysis.
The results show that eliminating expert services in OMWEs can adversely affect transaction outcomes in OMWEs. In particular, the results show that OMWEs should consider their product mix and market characteristics when making decisions about the appropriate use of expert services. The study provides insights for improving the potential of online reuse marketplaces in the circular economy. From a broader perspective, the paper contributes to the debate on the role of technology in sustainable development and technology substitution for human tasks.
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How much does the Online Circular Economy help the environment?
Recently, online matching platforms (e.g. Craigslist, FreeCycle, Gumtree) have enabled consumers to directly connect with each other to buy/sell used consumer goods (electronics, furniture, packaging etc.), which would have otherwise ended up in the waste stream. Such matching platforms can facilitate the creation of C2C closed loop supply chains (CLSCs) for used goods, which can enhance product reuse and limit reliance on recycling and disposal alternatives. Yet, the true environmental benefits of these internet-enabled C2C CLSCs remain to be ascertained. This study uses a quasi-experimental setup to examine how Craigslist’s entry into various U.S. geographic markets impacts a key environmental outcome – municipal solid waste (MSW). Using a dataset assembled from various disparate sources, I find that, on average, Craigslist’s entry into a geographic market results in a 2-6% annual reduction in MSW per capita generated.
In summary, this study identifies a potential opportunity for a decentralized approach to preventing waste. If MSW generation can be prevented at the source, then expensive methods for collection, sorting and disposal can be avoided. Second, it highlights an opportunity for public involvement. Online classifieds are becoming immensely popular with young adults, with the number of online adults who have used online classified ads having more than doubled between 2005 and 2009. This provides a great opportunity for breeding a culture of reuse focused around active consumer participation in waste prevention through online channels. In many ways, internet-enabled C2C CLSCs can help truly operationalize the timeless adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.
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How can we make Industrial Circular Economy more efficient?
No matter how lean companies become, they abound with surplus (used broadly here) in the form of unused materials, by-products and process waste. If efficiently re-purposed (reused/recycled), industrial surplus can generate billions of dollars in savings and provide substantial environmental benefits. Yet, a major challenge is the lack of coordination in “industrial surplus chains” which can efficiently connect producers and consumers of industrial surplus. Increasingly, Online Material and Waste Exchanges (OMWEs) such as MNExchange.Org and WasteMatch.Org are playing the role of coordinating industrial surplus chains. In our research, we examine the effectiveness of these OMWEs and the factors that lead to successful online surplus transactions.
The analysis shows that product and transaction information richness reduce buyer uncertainty and increase transactions in OMWEs. In addition, regional county-level policies and norms affect the sellers’ commitment to the online exchange. Also, the buyers’ and sellers’ prior online transaction experience positively affects their future exchanges in OMWEs. Finally, our analysis shows that decentralized online platforms are more effective in transactions of consumer durable surplus (e.g. office furniture, electronics) but less effective in transactions of process input surplus (e.g. wood, rubber, plastics). This study lays the foundation for understanding OMWEs and has important implications for developing policies and operations to coordinate industrial surplus chains.
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How do you modernize the industrial Circular Economy?
Online Material and Waste Exchanges (OMWEs) provide an online platform connecting suppliers of surplus material with potential buyers. The developers of such marketplaces (e.g., Materials Marketplace, iWasteNot) aim to improve the environment by helping industrial organizations repurpose surplus material and avoid landfill disposal. OMWEs represent an emerging surplus-driven supply network, which exhibits different internal complexity and dynamics than traditional supply networks, with similarly distinct transactional patterns and outcomes. Drawing on Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory, we investigate how the complex network adapts to alter the likelihood of transactions between buyers and suppliers.
Using data from MNexchange.org, an OMWE operating in the U.S. state of Minnesota, we observe that, at the node level, buyers’ adapt their searches for products over time to increase transaction success; at the dyadic level, buyer-supplier pairing patterns adapt over time through homophilous relations to facilitate negotiations and increase transaction success; and at the network level, the entire exchange system structurally self-organizes to increase transactions rates. Throughout, buyer competition influences transaction success, contingent on whether the product has been on the market for a long time, and buyers with more experience more quickly identify favorable conditions (among products and suppliers) leading to higher transaction success than less-experienced competitors. Overall, the results demonstrate multi-level network emergence, in which complex, adaptive, and longitudinal buyer-supplier interactions resolve uncertainty and increase transactions. These findings disentangle OMWEs’ operation to allow managers and policymakers to increase the overall buyer-supplier transaction rates with an eye toward improved environmental outcomes.
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Carrots and Sticks? Promoting Environmental Initiatives in SMEs…
The challenge of externally promoting improvements is critical in supply chain and policy settings. Yet, the two most commonly used external influence approaches represent fundamentally opposite philosophies. While one approach usespunitive tactics (e.g. audits, sanctions) to coerce companies, the other approach uses supportive tactics (e.g. improvement recommendations, follow-ups) to encourage them instead. In this study, we examine whether punitive and supportive tactics can be implemented in a complementary manner. In particular, we examine this question in the context of government agencies influencing environmental improvement (EI) projects in firms.
Using archival data collected from two state-level environmental agencies in Minnesota, we conduct a longitudinal analysis of over 820 EI projects tracked over several months. One key finding of our research is that the timing ofpunitive tactics is critical for the efficacy of supportive tactics. While punitive tactics prior to EI initiation may hold some benefits, the use of punitive tactics when facilities are in the midst of adopting EIs can be highly disruptive. Further, reinforcing supportive tactics through reminders and follow-ups can ensure higher (and faster) adoption of EIs. We present implications for using the punitive and supportive approaches in a complementary manner under both policy and supply chain settings.
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