UCL School of Management is delighted to welcome Tunay Tunca, University of Maryland, to host a research seminar discussing ‘Operations management in the sharing economy.’

Abstract

Employing innovative operational practices, sharing economy has shown tremendous growth in recent years. This talk will focus on two applications. The first part of the talk will focus on analysis of market formation in ride sharing (“An Empirical Analysis of Price Formation, Utilization, and Value Generation in Ride Sharing Services”, coauthored by Liu Ming, Yi Xu, and Weiming Zhu). Using data from the Chinese industry leader Didi Chuxing, we present a model that accurately estimates demand and supply, and predict the effect of price regulation on consumer and driver welfare. The second part of the talk explores group buying (“Consumer Equilibrium, Demand Effects, and Efficiency in Group Buying”, coauthored by Liu Ming). We present a dynamic game-theoretical model of consumer behavior in group buying events and, through structural estimation of this model with data from events hosted by Taobao.com, we study the demand improvement effects and value generation by this mechanism.