  Many "sharing economy" platforms, such as Uber and Airbnb, have become
increasingly popular, providing consumers with more choices and suppliers a
chance to make profit. They, however, have also brought about emerging issues
regarding regulation, tax obligation, and impact on urban environment, and have
generated heated debates from various interest groups. Empirical studies
regarding these issues are limited, partly due to the unavailability of
relevant data. Here we aim to understand service providers of the sharing
economy, investigating who joins and who benefits, using the Airbnb market in
the United States as a case study. We link more than 211 thousand Airbnb
listings owned by 188 thousand hosts with demographic, socio-economic status
(SES), housing, and tourism characteristics. We show that income and education
are consistently the two most influential factors that are linked to the
joining of Airbnb, regardless of the form of participation or year. Areas with
lower median household income, or higher fraction of residents who have
Bachelor's and higher degrees, tend to have more hosts. However, when
considering the performance of listings, as measured by number of newly
received reviews, we find that income has a positive effect for entire-home
listings; listings located in areas with higher median household income tend to
have more new reviews. Our findings demonstrate empirically that the
disadvantage of SES-disadvantaged areas and the advantage of SES-advantaged
areas may be present in the sharing economy.
