Biased Reputations : Using Cross-Listed Properties to Identify the Negative Effects of Race on Users’ Reputations on Airbnb

We investigate whether users' reputations on the sharing economy platform of Airbnb are racially biased. We do so by comparing the ratings of vacation rentals cross-listed on two sharing economy platforms: Airbnb and HomeAway. Whereas on Airbnb, the social demographic characteristics of hosts are salient, on HomeAway they are not. When the race of hosts is known, Black hosts receive lower rating scores compared to the rating scores that they receive for the exact same vacation rental when their race is unknown. We also show that the gap in evaluations has negative monetary implications for Black hosts on the Airbnb platform. We experimentally replicate the findings of the market analysis in a controlled setting and provide evidence for a causal relation between the race of hosts and the ratings they receive. Finally, an additional experiment explores the mechanism driving the results and shows that people stereotypically expect Black hosts to perform worse than White hosts