Carlotta Montorsi (University of Turin) and Gianluigi Conzo (University of Turin)

Postdocs/RTDA Seminars

Carlotta Montorsi (University of Turin)

Small Pictures, Big Biases: The Adverse Effect of an Airbnb Anti-Discrimination Policy

Abstract: Using scraped data from Airbnb’s platform in New York City alongside state-of-the-art Vision Transformers models for image classification, this paper investigates the existence and extent of race discrimination in the Airbnb platform and the impact of a policy to reduce this bias. First, we show that Black hosts have a 7.2 percentage points lower occupancy rate than their White counterparts despite no differences in pricing. For Asian and Hispanic hosts, the difference from Whites is small and mostly insignificant for both occupancy rate and prices. Second, using difference-in-differences and event-study approaches, we show that the 2018 Airbnb anti-discrimination policy, which reduced the size of users’ profile pictures on the platform, unexpectedly increased the Black-White disparity by about 4 percentage points. As a reaction to the adverse impact of the new policy, Black hosts increased the number of amenities in their listings. We argue that a potential mechanism for the increase in Black-White disparity stems from the increasing guests’ uncertainty in discerning facial features that positively correlate with occupancy rates from the smaller profile pictures. As a result, guests focus more on skin color.

Joint work with Julio Garbers (LISER)

Gianluigi Conzo (University of Turin)

Protecting Lives or Fighting Terrorism? Police Resource Allocation in the Brigate Rosse Era

Abstract: Using the 55-day kidnapping of Aldo Moro by the Brigate Rosse in 1978 and the time-specific release of Moro’s letters and the Brigate Rosse communiqués as a quasi-experimental setting, I analyze how governments allocate security resources when faced with simultaneous individual- and collective-level threats. I construct a unique, georeferenced dataset of daily police checks across Rome to measure both the intensity and spatial distribution of law enforcement activity. Preliminary evidence shows that police operations became more concentrated around known terrorist hideouts following the Brigate Rosse communiqués, whereas Moro’s letters elicited a more diffuse response across the city. On days when both a Moro letter and a Brigate Rosse communiqué were released, police efforts exhibited a pronounced shift toward counterterrorism. I suggest that pressures from public opinion and political debates played a key role in shaping these strategic responses, highlighting the inherent trade-offs between immediate hostage rescue and neutralizing broader terrorist threats.