Measuring the Impacts of Labor in the Platform Economy: New Work Created, Old Work Reorganized, and Value Creation Reconfigured

Abstract

Though economists have examined labor displacement due to digitization, few have considered the new work and value created. Studies of platforms invariably focus on specific organizational forms such as sharing or gigs. They build taxonomies based on the platform’s organization – few consider the scope and scale of platform-enabled value creation. We consider all of the platform-enabled value creation activities including old work displaced or reorganized to new work created. We apply our framework to the work generated by Etsy and Amazon publishing.

Keywords: Platform Economy, Technology, Work, Employment, Digitization

JEL Classification: J0, O1, O3