Do families suffer from discrimination in the sharing economy?

Last registered on May 03, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Do families suffer from discrimination in the sharing economy?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0009414
Initial registration date
April 26, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
May 03, 2023, 4:19 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
UiS

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Zurich
PI Affiliation
University of Zurich
PI Affiliation
HSE St. Petersburg

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2023-04-27
End date
2023-07-25
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
There is ample evidence that the sharing economy discriminates against minorities. The situation of families in the sharing economy, however, has been largely neglected. In this research, we want to examine if families suffer from discrimination.
Specifically, we want to contact vacation rental hosts asking if it is possible to rent an apartment. The control groups are a couple, a couple with one, two, or three friends. In the treatment group a couple has one, two, or
three kids. Additionally, we want to analyze if signaling the children’s ability increases the chances of receiving a response for
families.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Dietl, Helmut et al. 2023. "Do families suffer from discrimination in the sharing economy?." AEA RCT Registry. May 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.9414-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We want to contact rental hosts with the following text in the control group (couples without kids):

"Hello,
I am looking for a place for my husband and me. Do you think your place is appropriate for us?"

Additionally, we need a control group for couples with one, two, or three friends. Thus, we will change the
text as follows for three, four, or five adults:

"Hello,
I am looking for a place for a (two, three) friend(s), my husband, and me. Do you think your
place is appropriate for us?"

Families will contact the hosts as follows:

"Hello,
I am looking for a place for our (two, three) child(ren), my husband and me. Do you think your
place is appropriate for us?"

Hosts have almost no information available about the people who will stay in their place. We are using
accounts that have not received any reviews. To signal playful but well-behaved kids that are engaging
in quiet activities, we want to modify the sentence as follows:

"Hello,
I am looking for a place for our (two, three) child(ren), my husband and me. All of us (“We” for
the couple) are really looking forward to visiting the Louvre (or the appropriate local main
museum). Do you think your place is appropriate for us?"
Intervention Start Date
2023-07-04
Intervention End Date
2023-07-25

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The response from the host is the main outcome variable. We expect that we will get either a rejection or an invitation.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
The secondary outcome focuses on the fact if the additional information that signals well-behaved children changes the response rate of the hosts.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We want to contact vacation rental hosts asking if it is possible to rent an apartment. The control groups are a couple, a couple with one, two, or three friends. In the treatment group a couple has one, two, or
three kids. Additionally, we want to analyze if signaling the children’s ability increases the chances of receiving a response for
families.

We want to contact hosts in the five largest cities in the European Union.

We will use exclusively native-sounding names, as previous research shows that people with foreign-sounding names suffer from discrimination (see, e.g., Gomez-Gonzalez et al., 2021). Thus, we will construct five native-sounding female and five native-sounding male names for each country. We will confirm in local surveys that the names sound indeed native.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
We will use the computer program Stata to randomize the selection of hosts. We will set a seed before the start of the experiment to make the randomization method reproducible.
Randomization Unit
We have five groups - each group is one city. In each city, a unit of randomization is one host.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
10,000 rentals. 2,000 in each city.
Sample size: planned number of observations
10,000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We have around 1250 observations in the control group and 750 observations in the treatment group. 2000 observations for each city. The control group consists of couples (500 obs.), with one adult friend (250 obs.), two adult friends (250 obs.), or three adult friends (250 obs.). The treatment group consists of families with one child (250 obs.), two children (250 obs.), or three children (250 obs.).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
With a probability of failing to reject the null hypothesis β = 0.1, 750 observations in each group (control group without the couples), a power analysis provides a minimum detectable difference of 0.085 (with a binary response rate). With a probability of failing to reject the null hypothesis β = 0.1, 500 observations in the control group and 750 observations in the treatment group (control group only with couples), a power analysis provides a minimum detectable difference of 0.095 (with a binary response rate).
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Zurich - Human Subjects Committee
IRB Approval Date
2022-05-09
IRB Approval Number
2022-038

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials