Innovative research from the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and the Center for Research in Economics and Statistics uses sharing economy data as a ‘seismograph’ to trace the effects of societal events on attitudes. Results show an immediate and long-lasting uptick in the costs imposed on Arab-Muslim Airbnb hosts after the November 2015 Paris terror attacks.
The study used high frequency rental data from the Airbnb platform to track all rental interactions on over 900,000 Airbnb listings in Paris between November 2014 and March 2018. It modelled how Airbnb listing characteristics, displayed on the website, influenced how often a listing was rented out and what price it fetched. Another key variable included in their modelling was whether the host had a typically Arab-Muslim name, such as Mehdi, or a typically French name, such as Pierre.
This allowed the authors to establish that Arab-Muslim names predicted considerably lower prices and occupancy rates for properties that were otherwise similar in their listing characteristics. In a next step, the researchers measured the evolution of the attitudes underlying price and occupancy rate differences over time, and observed a clear jump in Paris after the November 2015 terror attack.
Lead-author Dr Sander Wagner, Research Associate at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and Oxford Population Health’s Demographic Science Unit said, ‘Our study illustrates how the high-frequency data being produced by the sharing economy can function like a seismograph, detecting shifts in attitudes towards a particular group. After the Paris attacks there was a general slump in tourism, but occupancy rates for Arab-Muslim hosts dropped considerably more.’
While Arab-Muslim hosts already incurred a penalty of $105-121 in lost monthly revenue prior to the attacks, this increased to $178-220 immediately afterwards. Dr Sander Wagner adds, ‘The nature of the penalty also changed. Before the attacks, Arab-Muslim hosts lost money because they charged lower prices for similar rental properties. After the attacks they still charged lower prices, but on top of that people rented their places out less.’
The authors had expected a temporary spike in discrimination driven by fear following the terror attacks, akin to the temporary increase in cautious behaviour scientists have documented after natural disasters. Surprisingly, the increased discrimination showed no signs of receding during the two and a half years analysed after the attacks.
Dr Sander Wagner concludes, ‘Our study demonstrates how innovative use of the data produced by the sharing economy can measure shifts in attitudes and discrimination. This raises important questions about the display of ethnicity-revealing information on sharing economy platforms, where it may unfairly shape user decisions. These findings also underscore the need for caution in how societies respond to the aftermath of terror attacks, to prevent innocent individuals from enduring ‘second-degree’ repercussions on top of the initial tragedy.’
The full article, ‘The Economic Penalty of Terrorism: Increase in Discrimination against Arabs and Muslims after Paris Attacks’, can be found in Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World.
