Study finds that Airbnb and Uber benefit people with lower incomes

The new “sharing economy” has been talked about quite a lot over the past year or two, with many experts highlighting the many benefits of it and some claiming that it has the potential to benefit people with lower incomes especially. In order to see whether this was true or not, researchers looked at the two biggest names in the sharing economy, Airbnb and Uber, and found that they do in fact have a positive impact on local economies, especially for people with lower incomes. 

Startups like Uber and Airbnb, which form the core of the new “sharing economy,” can have a particularly positive effect on people with lower incomes, according to a new report. The study, from New York University professor Arun Sundararajan and research scientist Samuel Fraiberger, analyzed data from two years of transactions provided by Getaround, a peer-to-peer car rental startup. While consumers across various income levels saw a positive impact, people who made less money experience a particularly big boost, the study found. Data from Uber and Airbnb was not used in this study, but it said the findings should extend to the broader sharing economy: “Perhaps the most important takeaway from our current findings, one we fully expect to persist with extensions and alternative calibrations, is that peer-to-peer rental marketplaces have a disproportionately positive effect on lower-income consumers across almost every measure.”