Seth Carnahan

Can You Gig it? An Empirical Examination of the Gig-Economy and Entrepreneurial Activity

We examine how the entry of gig-economy platforms influences local entrepreneurial activity. On one hand, such platforms may reduce entrepreneurial activity by offering stable employment for the un- and under-employed. On the other hand, such platforms may enable entrepreneurial activity by offering work flexibility that allows the entrepreneur to re-deploy resources strategically in order to pursue her nascent venture. To resolve this tension, we exploit a natural experiment, the entry of the ride-sharing platform Uber X and the on-demand delivery platform Postmates into local areas. We examine the effect of each on crowdfunding campaign launches at Kickstarter, the world’s largest reward-based crowdfunding platform. Results indicate a negative and significant effect on crowdfunding campaign launches, and thus local entrepreneurial activity, after entry of Uber X or Postmates. Strikingly, the effect appears to accrue primarily to unfunded and under-funded projects, suggesting that gig-economy platforms predominantly reduce lower quality entrepreneurial activity by offering viable employment for the un- and under-employed. We corroborate our findings with US Census data on self-employment, which indicate similar declines following the entry of Uber X, and with a small scale survey of gig-economy participants.

Unknowns of the gig-economy

Seeking multidisciplinary research into the rapidly evolving gig-economy.

Managers’ Political Beliefs and Gender Inequality among Subordinates: Does His Ideology Matter More than Hers?

Significant prior research has examined the role that managers play in producing gender inequality in organizations, but little work has directly explored the role of managers’ beliefs and attitudes. We bring managers’ beliefs and attitudes to the fore by theorizing about the relationship between managers’ political ideology, situated on a liberal-conservative continuum, and the level of gender inequality among their subordinates. Using novel microdata from the legal services industry, we find that law offices whose partners are more liberal have lower rates of gender inequality in the hiring and promotion of associate attorneys. Further, examining the interaction between partners’ gender and partners’ political ideology, we find that the political ideology of male partners is significantly more powerful in affecting these differences as compared with the ideology of female partners. Finally, we do not find evidence that these differences are driven by selection, in the form of higher quality female associates choosing to work for more liberal partners. We discuss the implications of our theory and findings for individual careers and firm performance.

Managers' political ideology and gender inequality within organizations

Political science research provides strong evidence that political ideology (e.g. liberal versus conservative) has an important influence on how individuals view gender roles in economic life. We p...

Can you gig it? An empirical examination of the GIG-economy and entrepreneurial activity

We examine how the entry of gig-economy platforms influences local entrepreneurial activity. On one hand, such platforms may reduce entrepreneurial activity by offering a stable employment for the ...