Are Coworkers in the Italian Peripheral Areas Performing Better? A Counterfactual Analysis

Coworking spaces are “serendipity accelerators” designed to host creative people and entrepreneurs. While recent literature has started exploring the indirect effects of coworking spaces on the local context, little is still known on how coworking spaces may directly affect the coworkers’ economic performance and wellbeing. Using a novel dataset based on a survey of 326 CWs working in the Italian coworking spaces in 2018, this paper explores the potential economic impact for coworkers, depending on whether a coworking space is localized in a peripheral or an urban area. Through a propensity-score matching approach, we found that being located in a peripheral area for coworkers may represent an opportunity to earn more than working in an urban center. The same holds for the organization coworkers belong to.

Estimating the impact of implementation and timing of COVID-19 vaccination program in Brazil: a counterfactual analysis

The vaccines developed in 2020-2021 against the SARS-CoV-2 virus were designed to prevent severity and deaths due to COVID-19. However, how effective this vaccination campaign was at saving lives remains a methodological challenge. In this work, we developed a Bayesian statistical model to estimate the number of deaths and hospitalizations in individuals above 60 years old in Brazil. Using the actual number of hospitalized and deaths from the Brazilian database, and also the coverage of second dose according to the National Immunization Program, we rebuilt the realized scenario as well as the hypothetical scenario without vaccination in Brazil in order to perform a counterfactual analysis. By computing the difference between the hypothetical and realized scenarios, we were able to estimate the direct effect of COVID-19 vaccination in Brazil. We also evaluated two other hypothetical, but not impossible, scenarios considering earlier vaccination roll-outs. We estimated that more than 165 thousand of 60+ years old individuals were not hospitalized due to COVID-19 until August 28, 2021, and other approximately 100 thousand individuals could not have been hospitalized if the immunization started as soon it was approved in Brazil. We also estimate that more than 75 thousand lives were saved in the period analysed for the same age group, and additional 48 thousand lives could have been saved if the Brazilian Government started the immunization 8 weeks earlier.

Online-Exclusive or Hybrid? Channel Merchandising Strategies for Ship-to-Store Implementation

We study how merchandising products as online-exclusive (i.e., products available only online) versus hybrid (i.e., products available both online and offline) can improve the performance of ship-to-store (STS) services, an omnichannel retail fulfillment initiative that allows customers to pick up their online orders in-store. First, using a stylized model, we theoretically demonstrate that although STS is likely to increase sales, it may also entail the risk of losing some customers by exposing them to alternative products at nearby competitors during in-store pickup visits. Online-exclusive products and hybrid products are subject to this tradeoff at different degrees. To minimize the risk of STS, we theoretically propose a channel merchandising strategy for the STS implementation. Next, we empirically test our theoretical predictions using data from an omnichannel retailer that launched the STS functionality. We also conduct an empirical counterfactual analysis to quantify the benefits of our proposed channel merchandising strategy. Overall, our theoretical model coupled with the empirical analysis suggests that to improve the performance of STS implementation, an omnichannel retailer should offer (i) products that are somewhat generic, low-priced, and with high in-store availability as online-exclusive and (ii) products that are somewhat unique, high-priced, and with low in-store availability as hybrid. The counterfactual analysis reveals that the proposed channel merchandising strategy can improve STS performance by increasing overall retail sales by another 2.7% for the focal retailer. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

Disturbances in the Ether

<p>We criticise the current philosophical practice of invoking causation as a solution to various problems in various fields of philosophy. Our specific concern is that many of these solutions to problems rely on the intuition that causation is "the cement of the universe". We question whether several different analyses of causation which are supposed to substantiate this intuition (or at least are treated as if they substantiate this intuition) in fact substantiate this intuition. We begin by establishing a basic desideratum for such an analysis of causation - that causal dependence ought to track physical dependence in this universe. We investigate in turn a Lewis-style counterfactual analysis of causation, the transference analysis developed by Aronson, Fair and Heathcote, and the process analyses developed by Salmon and Dowe. Rather to our surprise, none of the analyses fulfil our basic desideratum. Although this is not in itself conclusive grounds for scepticism about causation, our results speak against casually invoking analyses of causation in order to solve particular varieties of philosophical problems.</p>

Disturbances in the Ether

<p>We criticise the current philosophical practice of invoking causation as a solution to various problems in various fields of philosophy. Our specific concern is that many of these solutions to problems rely on the intuition that causation is "the cement of the universe". We question whether several different analyses of causation which are supposed to substantiate this intuition (or at least are treated as if they substantiate this intuition) in fact substantiate this intuition. We begin by establishing a basic desideratum for such an analysis of causation - that causal dependence ought to track physical dependence in this universe. We investigate in turn a Lewis-style counterfactual analysis of causation, the transference analysis developed by Aronson, Fair and Heathcote, and the process analyses developed by Salmon and Dowe. Rather to our surprise, none of the analyses fulfil our basic desideratum. Although this is not in itself conclusive grounds for scepticism about causation, our results speak against casually invoking analyses of causation in order to solve particular varieties of philosophical problems.</p>

The Incentive Game Under Target Effects in Ridesharing: A Structural Econometric Analysis

Problem definition: We study a ridesharing platform’s optimal bonus-setting decisions for capacity and profit maximization problems in which drivers set daily income targets. Academic and Practical Relevance: Sharing-economy companies have been providing monetary rewards to incentivize self-scheduled drivers to work longer. We study the effectiveness of the monetary bonus scheme in the context of the ridesharing industry, where the drivers are highly heterogeneous and set income targets. Methodology: We model a driver’s decision-making processes and the platform’s optimization problem as a Stackelberg game. Then, utilizing comprehensive datasets obtained from a leading ridesharing platform, we develop a novel empirical strategy to provide evidence on the existence of drivers’ income-targeting behavior through a reduced-form and structural analysis. Furthermore, we perform a counterfactual analysis to calculate the optimal bonus rates for different scenarios by using the characteristics of heterogeneous drivers derived from the estimation outcomes. Results: Our theoretical model suggests that the drivers’ working hours do not increase monotonically with the bonus rate under the target effect and that the platform may not use all its budget on bonuses to maximize capacity or profit. We empirically demonstrate that the drivers engage in income-targeting behavior, and furthermore, we estimate the income targets for heterogeneous drivers. Through counterfactual analysis, we illustrate how the optimal bonus scheme varies when the platform faces different driver compositions and market conditions. We also find that, compared with the platform’s previous bonus setting, the optimal bonus strategy improves the capacity level during peak hours by as much as 26%, boosting the total profit by $4.3 million per month. Managerial implications: It is challenging to develop a flexible self-scheduled supply of drivers that can match the ever-changing demand and maintain the market share of the ridesharing platform. When offering monetary bonuses to incentivize drivers to work longer, the drivers’ income-targeting behavior can undermine the effectiveness of such bonus schemes. The platform needs to understand the heterogeneity of drivers’ behavioral preferences regarding monetary rewards to design an effective bonus strategy.

Assortative Matching or Exclusionary Hiring? The Impact of Employment and Pay Policies on Racial Wage Differences in Brazil

We measure the effects of firm policies on racial pay differences in Brazil. Non-Whites are less likely to be hired by high-wage firms, explaining about 20 percent of the racial wage gap for both genders. Firm-specific pay premiums for non-Whites are also compressed relative to Whites, contributing another 5 percent for that gap. A counterfactual analysis reveals that about two-thirds of the underrepresentation of non-Whites at higher-wage firms is explained by race-neutral skill-based sorting. Non-skill-based sorting and differential wage setting are largest for college-educated workers, suggesting that the allocative costs of discriminatory hiring and pay policies may be relatively large in Brazil. (JEL J15, J24, J31, J41, J46, J71, O15)