题目: Consumer Protection in an Online World: An Analysis of Occupational Licensing

主讲人：Chiara Farronato

主讲人简介：Chiara Farronato是哈佛大学工商管理系助理教授，2015年获得斯坦福大学经济学博士学位。主要研究方向是创新和互联网经济学，专注于点对点在线平台的市场设计。她的作品被Bloomberg Businessweek彭博商业周刊，The Huffington Post赫芬顿邮报，The Economist经济学家和FT Magazine 金融时报等杂志引用。

讲座摘要：

This paper studies the effects of occupational licensing on consumer choices and market outcomes in a large online platform for residential home services, where professional service providers bid on consumers’ projects. We exploit exogenous variation in the time at which licenses are displayed on the platform to identify the causal effects of licensing information on consumer choices. We find that platform verified licensing status is not valued by consumers and corroborate this finding in a survey of consumers. In contrast, we find that consumers are heavily influenced by reviews and prices. Next, we use zip code by job category variation in licensing stringency to measure the effects of licensing on aggregate market outcomes on the platform. Our results show that more stringent licensing regulations lead to less competition and higher prices, but do not improve customer satisfaction.

讲座时间：6月17日12：30-14：00

讲座地点：文荟楼201