Reducing discrimination: Evidence from online experiments on a Hungarian ride-sharing platform

This note explores discrimination against ethnic minorities in the new platform economy. Using experiments fielded in collaboration with a Hungarian car-sharing platform we demonstrate that contrary to the conventional wisdom, Roma users are discriminated even when positive reviews are available. Through a collaborative effort with the platform spanning multiple years we designed an intervention whose purpose was to reduce anti-Roma discrimination, and tested it via a survey experiment. We show that forced exposure to our video clip led to a large reduction in discrimination against Roma passengers as mea- sured by survey-takers’ choices made between fictional passengers. While we attempted to pilot our intervention in the field, we were unable to expose real users to our video clip in ways that were compatible with our partner organization’s interests. Taken together our findings showcase both the opportunities and the challenges that are involved in fighting discrimination in cooperation with market players.