Publications
Publications
- March 2020 (Revised August 2022)
- HBS Case Collection
Racial Discrimination on Airbnb (A)
By: Michael Luca, Scott Stern, Devin Cook and Hyunjin Kim
Abstract
Facing mounting criticism and evidence of widespread racial discrimination on the platform, apartment rental platform Airbnb needed to decide a path forward. For years, Airbnb had given hosts extensive discretion about whether to reject a guest after seeing little more than a name and a picture, believing this was the best way for the company to build trust. While Airbnb ran thousands of experiments per year looking at ways to grow the user base and short-run profit, they failed to track or account for the possibility of discrimination. Should they become more proactive about identifying discrimination on the platform? Should they change the design of the platform to reduce discrimination? If so, how would they decide whether the changes were successful?
Keywords
Citation
Luca, Michael, Scott Stern, Devin Cook, and Hyunjin Kim. "Racial Discrimination on Airbnb (A)." Harvard Business School Case 920-051, March 2020. (Revised August 2022.)