Abstract

Co-aurthored with Carlotta Montorsi

“We study the intersectionality of host ethnicity and gender on Airbnb, the biggest online marketplace for short-term rentals worldwide. Using scraped data from New York City, we constructed a monthly panel of Airbnb listings from May 2016 until December 2019. Moreover, we fine-tune a face classification algorithm to classify the ethnicity and gender of Airbnb hosts through their profile pictures. We first measure the impact of ethnicity and gender on occupancy rates (i.e., the number of bookings) and prices. Second, we evaluate a 2018 Airbnb anti-discrimination policy, which reduced the size of the host profile picture. Our results indicate that the occupancy rates of accommodations offered by Black (Hispanic) hosts are about 6.5-8 (2-2.5) percentage points lower. The occupancy rate of men is lower than the one of women across all ethnic groups. Differences in prices cannot explain the differences in occupancy rates. Moreover, our estimates show that the 2018 Airbnb anti-discrimination policy did not effectively reduce discrimination against ethnic minorities. Instead, it intensified discrimination against Black men.”