Workshop on Platform Analytics

The Workshop on Platform Analytics presents new scientific research on platform analytics. Past papers are archived below. Past talks are on YouTube.

The Workshop on Platform Analytics (WoPA) is a single-track, multi-disciplinary workshop presenting new research on platform analytics.

Platforms enable direct interactions between diverse groups of agents. Marketplaces connect buyers and sellers; media platforms connect advertisers, creators and viewers; sharing platforms connect resource owners with resource users; app stores connect developers and users. Platforms are pervasive in the digital economy. Sriram et al. (2014) cover some platform research topics in greater depth and point to foundational literature.

We construe Platform Analytics broadly as the use of data to improve decisions in platform contexts. Relevant decisions might include platform design, rankings, listings, usage, pricing, advertising, personalization, ratings or reviews. Relevant topics might include:
-network externalities;
-agent utility, search, matching, purchase or welfare;
-reputation, manipulation, trust or fraud;
-discrimination, diversity or fairness;
-competition within or between platforms;
-data privacy and sharing;
-antitrust or other regulations.
Ideal papers might show how to use platform data to improve decisions in platform contexts.

WoPA will be held in-person in San Diego. It is tentatively scheduled for April 6-7, 2024, pending venue availability. The organizers are Minkyung Kim (CMU), Davide Proserpio (USC) and Kenneth C. Wilbur (UCSD). The workshop is sponsored by the USC Marshall Initiative on Digital Competition.

We invite unpublished working papers on platform analytics for a competitive submission process. We welcome relevant submissions from government, industry or any academic discipline, including computer science, economics, information systems, marketing, operations or others.

This year we decided to use EasyChair for managing the conference and submission. Submit a paper by October 15, 2023, using the following link: SUBMIT A PAPER. Submission instructions can be found here.

Maximum one submission per submitting author. Please do not submit papers that are already published, accepted, or likely to be accepted before the workshop.

We will notify authors of accepted papers by January. Submitting authors and scientific committee members will be invited for early registration. The program will be posted at PlatformAnalytics.org.

We kindly ask for help distributing this announcement to interested researchers.

We thank the scientific committee members. Their volunteer service makes this workshop possible.

Alessandro Acquisti, Carnegie Mellon University
Luis Aguiar, University of Zurich
Paulo Albuquerque, INSEAD
Diego Aparicio, IESE Business School
Guy Aridor, Northwestern Kellogg
Shrabastee Banerjee, Tilburg University
Tommaso Bondi, Cornell
Luís Cabral, NYU
Ishita Chakraborty, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Hana Choi, University of Rochester
Junhong Chu, Hong Kong University
Giovanni Compiani, University of Chicago
Dante Donati, Columbia University
Yaniv Dover, The Hebrew University Business School
Jean-Pierre Dube, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Chiara Farronato, Harvard Business School
Jessica Fong, University of Michigan
Andrey Fradkin, Boston University
Pedro Gardete, Nova School of Business and Economics
David Godes, John Hopkins University
Brett Hollenbeck, UCLA Anderson
David Holtz, UC Berkeley
John J. Horton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Justin T. Huang, University of Michigan
Xiang Hui, Washington University in St. Louis
Zhenling Jiang, University of Pennsylvania
Rafael Jimenez-Duran, Bocconi University
Ginger Zhe Jin, University of Maryland
H. Tai Lam, UCLA Anderson
Hannah Li, Columbia University
Jura Liaukonyte, Cornell University
Yi Liu, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Meng Liu, Washington University in St Louis
Fei Long, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Michael Luca, Harvard Business School
Nikhil Malik, University of Southern California
Puneet Manchanda, University of Michigan
Dina Mayzlin, USC Marshall school
Daniel McCarthy, Emory University Goizueta Business School
Carl F. Mela, Duke University
Milan Miric, University of Southern California
Sarah Moshary, UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business
Unnati Narang, UIUC
Sridhar Narayanan, Stanford University
Omid Rafieian, Cornell Tech
Imke Reimers, Cornell University
Michelangelo Rossi, Télécom Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Navdeep S. Sahni, Stanford University
Amin Sayedi, University of Washington
Stephan Seiler, Imperial College London
Ananya Sen, Carnegie Mellon University
Zijun (June) Shi, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Andrey Simonov, Columbia University
S. Sriram, University of Michigan
Isamar Troncoso, Harvard Business School
Kosuke Uetake, Yale
Vithala Rao, Cornell University
Caio Waisman, Northwestern University
Joel Waldfogel, University of Minnesota
Yuyan Wang, Stanford University
Nils Wernerfelt, Northwestern
Linli Xu, University of Minnesota
Song Yao, Washington University in St. Louis
Pinar Yildirim, University of Pennsylvania
Hema Yoganarasimhan, University of Washington
Xu Zhang, Xu Zhang
Bo Zhou, University of Maryland
Kai Zhu, Bocconi University
Yi Zhu, University of Minnesota

Friday, April 7, 2023

12:30 : Online Advertising as Passive Search
by Raluca M. Ursu (NYU), Andrey Simonov (Columbia U.), Eunkyung An (NYU).
Discussant: Jura Liaukonyte (Cornell U.)
Replay on YouTube

13:30 : Gratuities in a Digital Services Marketplace
by Seung Hyun Kim (UC San Diego), On Amir (UC San Diego), Kenneth C. Wilbur (UC San Diego).
Discussant: Avner Strulov-Shlain (U. of Chicago)
Replay on YouTube

15:00 : Platform Search Design and Market Power
by H. Tai Lam (UCLA).
Discussant: Giovanni Compiani (U. of Chicago)
Replay on YouTube

16:00 : When to Target Customers? Retention Management using Dynamic Off-Policy Policy Learning
by Ryuya Ko (U. of Tokyo), Kosuke Uetake (Yale U.), Kohei Yata (U. of Wisconsin-Madison), Ryosuke Okada (ZOZO Inc.).
Discussant: Justin Huang (U. of Michigan)
Replay on YouTube

17:00 : Platform Leakage: Incentive Conflicts in Two-Sided Markets
by Yingkang Xie (Northwestern U.), Huaiyu Zhu (Lalamove).
Discussant: Jessica Fong (U. of Michigan)

Saturday, April 8, 2023

09:00 : Does Machine Learning Amplify Pricing Errors in Housing Market?: Economics of ML Feedback Loops
by Nikhil Malik (U. of Southern California), Emaad Manzoor (Cornell U.).
Discussant: Ron Berman (U. of Pennsylvania)
Replay on YouTube

10:00 : "The Effects of Diversity in Algorithmic Recommendations on Digital Content Consumption: A Field Experiment"
by Guangying Chen (Washington U. in St. Louis), Tat Y. Chan (Washington U. in St. Louis), Dennis J. Zhang (Washington U. in St. Louis), Senmao Liu (NetEase Cloud Music Inc.), Yuxiang Wu (NetEase Cloud Music Inc.).
Discussant: David Holtz (UC Berkeley)
Replay on YouTube

11:00 : Advertising as Information for Ranking E-Commerce Search Listings
by Joonhyuk Yang (Notre Dame), Navdeep Sahni (Stanford U.), Harikesh Nair (Google), Xi Xiong (Tiktok).
Discussant: Fei Long (U. of North Carolina)
Replay on YouTube

13:30 : The Impact of Engagement with User-generated Content in Online Discussion Forums
by Varad Deolankar (U. of Michigan), Ali Goli (U. of Washington), S. Sriram (U. of Michigan), Pradeep K. Chintagunta (U. of Chicago).
Discussant: Davide Proserpio (U. of Southern California)
Replay on YouTube

14:30 : The Economics of Content Moderation: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Hate Speech on Twitter
by Rafael Jimenez-Duran (U. of Chicago).
Discussant: Pinar Yildirim (U. of Pennsylvania)
Replay on YouTube

Travel to San Diego

Things that may not be obvious:

1. Domestic travelers to San Diego airport (code: SAN) may want to search Southwest Airlines as well as regular flight search engines. Southwest operates numerous flights.

2. The Tijuana International Airport (code: TIJ) is about a 40-minute drive from UCSD. A pedestrian bridge called the Cross-Border Express enables air travelers to disembark directly into the United States. Some international flights to TIJ are substantially cheaper than similar flights to SAN.

3. Those traveling within Southern California may consider the Pacific Surfliner. Consult PacificSurfliner.com for travel advisories or closures due to cliffside erosion. You could disembark in Solana Beach and take a ridesharing service to campus, or in Old Town and take the Trolley Blue Line to campus.

4. If you fly into SNA, LGB or LAX, be advised that public transit options to San Diego are limited. Consider renting a car.

Accommodation

There is no designated hotel for the workshop. We recommend the following options:

1. We recommend the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines, Residence Inn by Marriott, Sheraton La Jolla, or Hyatt Regency La Jolla At Aventine.

2. The Estancia La Jolla is a lovely boutique hotel within easy walking distance, but it is substantially more expensive. The Lodge at Torrey Pines and La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club are in a similar class but not quite as close.

3. San Diego has numerous other accommodation options. We recommend checking Hotels Combined or AirBnB. You may want to consider staying near a Blue Line Trolley stop if you do not rent a car. Or, you could stay in the Village of La Jolla, La Jolla Shores, or University City and rely on ride-sharing services or the MTS 30 bus.

Arriving at UCSD

1. The workshop will be held at the UCSD Rady School of Management at 5 Scholars Drive North. We recommend taxi or ride sharing as the easiest way to get to the Rady School, because they do not require parking or walking.

2. The UC San Diego Trolley Blue Line began operation in 2020 and connects UCSD to Downtown San Diego and the US/Mexico Border. Trolleys run every 15 minutes and fares can be paid on the PRONTO app. We recommend using the trolley with two caveats. The UCSD Pepper Canyon stop is a 20-minute walk from the Rady School, including a large hill. The trolley is usually busy and safe, but off-peak ridership can be unpredictable.
Relatedly, a cheap way to travel from SAN airport to UCSD is to take the airport's free Rental Car Shuttle, disembark at Admiral Boland Way, walk one block east on Palm Avenue across Pacific Highway, and board the Trolley Blue Line at the Middletown station, as described here.

3. Driving directions to the Rady School are here. UCSD Visitor Parking costs $4/hour, up to a maximum of $32/day. However, the number of visitor parking spaces is limited and may require search across multiple parking lots.

4. There are some free parking spaces in an unpaved lot at the Torrey Pines Gliderport, a 15-minute walk to the workshop site, or curbside on nearby Torrey Pines Scenic Dr. Hoewver, the lot may fill up early on weekday mornings.

Platform Strategy Research Symposium at BU-Questrom

European Digital Platform Research Network (EU-DPRN)

Online seminar on the Economics of Platforms

Platform Papers Substack by Joost Rietveld

Talking about Platforms podcast interviews academic researchers, among others

Platformer News

Please email us any other relevant fora we can include here.

Organizers: Minkyung Kim (CMU), Davide Proserpio (USC), Kenneth C. Wilbur (UCSD)

Workshoponplatformanalytics, followed by the "at" symbol, and then gmail.com