UCL School of Management is delighted to welcome Ming Hu, Rotman School of Management, to host a research seminar discussing’ Pricing and matching in sharing economy.’

Abstract

Motivated by the emerging sharing economy, we study an intermediary such as Uber, who crowdsources goods or services from independent suppliers or agents, and sells them to consumers. First, we focus on the optimality of fixed commission crowdsourcing contracts under market uncertainty. Surprisingly, we show that the commission contract can be optimal or near-optimal for the intermediary (and suppliers). Second, taking into account other factors of suppliers and consumers beyond valuation, such as geographic location or quality, for given prices, we focus on characterizing the optimal matching policy for the intermediary and show when it is optimal to prioritize matching based on distance or quality.