Regulation strictness and supply in the platform economy: the case of Airbnb and Couchsurfing

ABSTRACT

To what extent is regulation associated with supply in the platform economy (PE)? We address this research question by analyzing the relationship between the strictness of rules/laws in 59 U.S. cities and the number of short-stay accommodation offerings. We find that the stricter regulation is, the higher the supply in these platforms. We also investigate how the presence (or lack thereof) of money transactions in the platform affects this relationship. We discover that the presence of money transactions in these platforms negatively moderates the positive relationship between regulation strictness and the supply of short-stay accommodations. This paper contributes to the literature by investigating how aggregate supply in the PE is affected by legal uncertainties, thereby joining the debate on how digital platforms are reforming labor practices in major parts of the economy and industrial value chains.     

Cybersecurity through the lens of Digital Identity and Data Protection: Issues and Trends

The use of a secure and robust digital identification system that is capable of protecting privacy is an essential, reliable and user-friendly element for a strong cyber resilience strategy and is a source of new business opportunities and applications for banks, private sector with a return on their investment.The march towards Digital Identity is well underway therefore, focus should be on both adoption and adaption of the new structures and regulations. These are needed to govern the associated services and transactions as well as establishing laws that enforce penalties for violations.There is no doubt then that more and more entities and institutions would move to the cloud. Security challenges affecting the cloud may not be new but the mode of addressing them would be different. The authors develop a Data Colouring technique for securing data processed or stored on both cloud and non-cloud platforms. The technique combines Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), concatenated fingerprints and digital watermarking. Using this technique, data can be secured at creation or during storage and remains secure during processing.     

The ethical debate about the gig economy: A review and critical analysis

The gig economy is a phenomenon that is rapidly expanding, redefining the nature of work and contributing to a significant change in how contemporary economies are organised. Its expansion is not unproblematic. This article provides a clear and systematic analysis of the main ethical challenges caused by the gig economy. Following a brief overview of the gig economy, its scope and scale, we map the key ethical problems that it gives rise to, as they are discussed in the relevant literature. We map them onto three categories: the new organisation of work (what is done), the new nature of work (how it is done), and the new status of workers (who does it). We then evaluate a recent initiative from the EU that seeks to address the challenges of the gig economy. The 2019 report of the European High-Level Expert Group on the Impact of the Digital Transformation on EU Labour Markets is a positive step in the right direction. However, we argue that ethical concerns relating to algorithmic systems as mechanisms of control, and the discrimination, exclusion and disconnectedness faced by gig workers require further deliberation and policy response. A brief conclusion completes the analysis. The appendix presents the methodology underpinning our literature review.     

The sociotechnical constitution of cognitive work analysis: roles,affordances and malfunctions

Analysis of everyday work practices in sociotechnical systems for eliciting design/intervention requirements involves appropriate work analysis frameworks. The current article provides an extension to one such framework — Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) — by scrutinising its sociotechnical basis. CWA's forte depends on its ‘design for adaptation’, system related operations, and operators. In contrast, sociotechnical work systems require not only operators and adaptation, but also a significant emphasis on ‘users’ and ‘appropriation’. The current article extends CWA (based on Rasmussen's original concepts) for users; subsequently allowing for system flexibility and possibilities of ‘appropriation’ within acceptable boundaries of the system's correct functioning. To this end, the first phase of Work Domain Analysis is extended by adding a new layer to the abstraction hierarchy (AH), based on Rasmussen's original insights.     

Institutional entrepreneurship and social innovation at the base of the pyramid: the case of M-Pesa in Kenya

This paper explores the agency of multinational corporations that perform social innovation under conditions of institutional complexity and resource constraints. Insights are drawn from a case study of Vodafone Group Plc and Safaricom Kenya Ltd that engaged in mobile money innovation in Kenya. The paper identifies three types of institutional voids that entrepreneurs can exploit to implement a social innovation: market, policy and social voids. Legitimating the social innovation involves appealing to the instrumental needs of target users, early and sustained engagement with policy-makers and redefining meanings of both incumbent and new technologies. The paper argues that spanning institutional voids – which provide entrepreneurial opportunities – also provide contingent legitimation narratives that can be targeted at different audiences. By mobilising insights from institutional theory, this paper provides a fresh perspective of social innovation in a base of the pyramid context.     

How things don''t work: Victor Papanek and James Hennessey, Pantheon Books, New York (1977) 154 pp, £3.45

This paper reviews some aspects of the nineteenth-century religious communitarian sect, the Shakers. It concentrates particularly on the environmental and other technical design aspects of the Shaker communities, setting these within the context of Shaker life and beliefs. Their design policy produced not just individual artefacts (such as the furniture for which the Shakers are particularly well known) but a total, Utopian environment which reflected and embodied their beliefs.     

Safety effects of roundabouts in Flanders: signal type, speed limits and vulnerable road users

This paper examines the road safety effects of roundabouts built in Flanders between 1994 and 2000. While the overall effect is positive (39% reduction of injury accidents), the results vary considerably with the speed limit on the main and adjacent road (the higher, the more effective) and the pre-roundabout signalization of the intersection (32% reduction with traffic lights versus 44% without). However, microscopic analysis reveals that roundabouts are not always effective. Serious injury accidents are estimated to increase by 117% on 70 km/h x 50 km/h intersections equipped with signalization before the roundabout. The number of injury accidents involving vulnerable road users is also found to increase (28%) on 50 km/h x 50 km/h junctions that were originally signalized. Moreover, the vulnerable road user is more likely to get fatally or seriously injured. Therefore, it is concluded that traffic lights protect vulnerable road users more effectively than roundabouts, which, in turn, are superior to intersections without signalization.     

Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions to contain COVID-19: a case study of the 2020 spring pandemic wave in New York City

As COVID-19 continues to pose significant public health threats, quantifying the effectiveness of different public health interventions is crucial to inform intervention strategies. Using detailed epidemiological and mobility data available for New York City and comprehensive modelling accounting for under-detection, we reconstruct the COVID-19 transmission dynamics therein during the 2020 spring pandemic wave and estimate the effectiveness of two major non-pharmaceutical interventions—lockdown-like measures that reduce contact rates and universal masking. Lockdown-like measures were associated with greater than 50% transmission reduction for all age groups. Universal masking was associated with an approximately 7% transmission reduction overall and up to 20% reduction for 65+ year olds during the first month of implementation. This result suggests that face covering can substantially reduce transmission when lockdown-like measures are lifted but by itself may be insufficient to control SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Overall, findings support the need to implement multiple interventions simultaneously to effectively mitigate COVID-19 spread before the majority of population can be protected through mass-vaccination.     

Exploring differential trends in severe and fatal child pedestrian injury in New South Wales, Australia (1997–2006)

The study explores trends in severe and fatal child pedestrian injuries in New South Wales (NSW), over the 10-year period 1997–2006, in comparison to adults and for various subgroups. Data on pedestrian injury (reported as fatalities or hospitalisations) were obtained from the Traffic Accident Database System (TADS; Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales) which captures road traffic events reported to police, and from the NSW Admitted Patients Data Collection (APDC) which captures all hospital inpatient separations. Annual percentage changes in injury counts and rates were compared using Poisson regression. A substantial drop in the pedestrian injury rate was observed; however, the rate of decline was steeper for children (aged less than 15 years) than for adults. The drop in child pedestrian injury was manifest in both the police report data and the hospital admission data. The annual percentage decrease was significantly greater for boys than for girls, and the three major urban centres compared with elsewhere in the state. No differences were detected in the annual rate decrease between school days and non-school days (a proxy for safe school zones), or between different road types (a proxy for restricted speed limits). Past research suggests that injury rate reductions are not solely due to decreased exposure. There remains, however, limited data on the extent of pedestrian mobility. Differences in relative reduction in pedestrian injury rates suggest a differential benefit arising from road safety initiatives.     

新时期高校就业指导工作探析

高等教育大众化背景下，大学生就业形势越来越严峻，如何与时俱进，开拓新的工作思路及方法，优化高校就业指导工作，是当今各高等院校面临的重要课题。文章将从四个方面对新时期就业指导工作进行探析。