Vignesh Ananth

Vignesh Ananth

Economist - Econometrics - Data Analytics - Machine Learning - Data Science

Sitemap

A list of all the posts and pages found on the site. For you robots out there is an XML version available for digesting as well.

Pages

Posts

The costs keep mounting in the gig economy

9 minute read

Published:

The last decade has been the decade of the gig economy. Companies such as Uber, Lyft, Doordash and Airbnb that occupy this space have had access to unprecedented amounts of venture capital that has fueled tremendous amounts of unprofitable growth. Airbnb has raised $4.8 billion dollars since inception and Uber has raised $24.5 billion dollars since inception, neither has been consistently profitable. These companies have hit many speed bumps along the way, some as a result of their - grow at any cost attitude and other regulatory pressures that have altered overly optimistic profitability predictions and valuations. However, COVID-19 and the impending fallout from this crisis is the ultimate test of the robustness of their business models and valuations they command. It is nothing like these companies, let alone anyone in the world - perhaps with the exception of Bill Gates, ever imagined in their wildest dreams was coming.

Do ride sharing services make traffic congestion worse?

11 minute read

Published:

The introduction of ride sharing platforms like Uber and Lyft have made our lives significantly better. Gone are the days where not owning a car meant meticulous examination of public transport schedules or expensive cab rides. They have so seamlessly integrated into our lives that it’s hard for me to even think about life without access to a ride on demand, wherever I am, at whatever time of the night.

A/B Testing and Econometrics - Part 2

10 minute read

Published:

This is the second post in a two part post on A/B testing and causal inference using Econometric methods. The first post can be found here.

Sentiment Analysis of Airbnb Reviews

4 minute read

Published:

The ubiquity of the multi side sharing economy platforms has gotten most of us accustomed to assigning a ‘star-rating’ post usage of a service. In the case of Uber it is a 5 star scale that both driver and passenger assign each other. In the case of Airbnb it is a 10 point scale for a variety of criterion that both hosts and renters assign each other.

Are Airbnb hosts really just sharing excess capacity? - Evidence from San Franscico

4 minute read

Published:

The growth of the short-term home and room rental marketplace Airbnb has been nothing short of explosive. From its inception in 2008 as a small experiment by it’s founders to make some extra money to cover rent during a design conference in San Francisco, it has grown into a global hospitality behemoth valued at 31 billion dollars with 4 million properties listed. Leveraging the power of the sharing economy, this growth has been possible without Airbnb owning a single property.

Lessons From Trying To Start-Up

5 minute read

Published:

In early 2015 the buzz around the sharing economy was heating up and I decided that there was a market to build a product in that space. Reading ‘What’s mine is yours’ by Rachel Botsman contributed to selling me on the idea.

portfolio

publications

talks

teaching

Teaching experience 1

Undergraduate course, University 1, Department, 2014

This is a description of a teaching experience. You can use markdown like any other post.

Teaching experience 2

Workshop, University 1, Department, 2015

This is a description of a teaching experience. You can use markdown like any other post.