SAIF BENJAAFAR

SAIF BENJAAFAR

SAIF BENJAAFAR

Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Professor and Incoming Head of Industrial and Systems Engineering; Director, Initiative on the Sharing Economy; Fellow of the Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota

Models for the Sharing Economy
The sharing economy is used to denote emerging business models that enable the access to products and services on an on-demand basis. In some cases, this access is mediated by a digital platform that connects suppliers (often single individuals who are willing to share assets or provide a service) with buyers. Some of these platforms have been successful in overcoming the inefficiencies of peer-to-peer interactions by reducing transaction and search costs, facilitating payments, reducing moral hazard, and enabling trust among strangers. Others have been successful in harnessing economies of scale by tapping into idle assets or leveraging the crowd. These platforms present unique operational challenges regarding how best to match supply and demand, including pricing, wage setting, real time matching of buyers and suppliers, and the management of inventory and workforce, among others. They also raise important questions regarding the impact on consumers, incumbent firms, and society (e.g., environmental impact and impact on labor welfare). In this tutorial, we describe recent efforts at developing models for the design, analysis, and optimization of these systems. In particular, we draw on three papers that consider (1) peer-to-peer product sharing, (2) labor platforms for on-demand services, and (3) product rental networks. We also discuss the many outstanding opportunities for operations and management science research in this area. (Based on joint work with Costas Courcoubetis, Jian-Ya Ding, Xiang Li, Xiaobo Li, Guangwen Kong, and Terry Taylor.)