Notes

This is the associated code for my paper Owning, Using and Renting: Some Simple Economics of the "Sharing" Economy. The paper is available at:

1. My website: http://www.john-joseph-horton.com/papers/sharing.pdf
2. SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2730850
3. NBER: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22029

Citation Info

@techreport{NBERw22029,
 title = "Owning, Using and Renting:  Some Simple Economics of the "Sharing Economy"",
 author = "John J. Horton and Richard J. Zeckhauser",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "22029",
 year = "2016",
 month = "February",
 doi = {10.3386/w22029},
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w22029",
 abstract = {New Internet-based markets enable consumer/owners to rent out their durable goods when not using them. Such markets are modeled to determine ownership, rental rates, quantities, and surplus generated. Both the short run, before consumers can revise their ownership decisions, and the long run, in which they can, are examined to assess how these markets change ownership and consumption. The analysis examines bringing-to-market costs, such as labor costs and transaction costs, and considers the operating platform’s pricing problem. A survey of consumers broadly supports the modeling assumptions employed. For example, ownership is determined by individuals’ forward-looking assessments of planned usage.},
}	  

Replication

The repository is set up to make it transparent how the final PDF is constructed from the raw data. To replicate, you will need a Linux or Mac OX machine that has the following installed:

1. R
2. pdflatex
3. make
4. gs (GhostScript)

To replicate the data analysis, you will need several R packages. However, when you run the code below, it should obtain all these R-specific dependencies you need.

####Download the repository from github

 git clone git@github.com:johnjosephhorton/sharing.git 

Build the PDF

From /sharing, run:

cd writeup
make sharing.pdf

This should install all the necessary R packages. It will also run the statistical analysis in R (downloading all needed packages) and then produce plots and tables (stored in writeup/tables and writeup/plots).

Finally, it will build the pdf file using pdflatex, leaving the resultant sharing.pdf in the /writeup folder. To see the actual steps that are being followed, you can inspect writeup\Makefile.

If you run into any trouble replicating, please contact me at john.joseph.horton@gmail.com.