What Do Big Data Tell Us about Why People Take Gig Economy Jobs?
AEA Papers and Proceedings
vol. 109,
May 2019
(pp. 367-71)
Abstract
The gig economy is widely regarded to be a source of secondary or temporary income, but little is known about economic activity outside of the gig economy. Using data from a large, online personal finance application, I document the evolution of non-gig income and household balance sheets surrounding the participation decision for gig economy jobs. This simple analysis reveals striking pretrends in income and assets. In addition to providing insight into the reasons why households enter the gig economy, these findings have potentially important implications for the external validity of previous studies focusing on gig economy activity only.Citation
Koustas, Dmitri K. 2019. "What Do Big Data Tell Us about Why People Take Gig Economy Jobs?" AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109: 367-71. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20191041Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C55 Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis
- D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
- J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
- J23 Labor Demand