Found out about this through a colleague:
“Playlisting Favorites: Measuring Platform Bias in the Music Industry”
will be held online via Cisco WebEx on
Thursday, 26 August 2021 from 2.00 p.m. to 3.00 p.m. (CEST; Berlin time)
Abstract
Platforms are growing increasingly powerful, raising questions about whether their power might be exercised with bias. While bias is inherently difficult to measure, we identify a context within the music industry that is amenable to bias testing. Our approach requires ex ante platform assessments of commercial promise - such as the rank order in which products are presented - along with information on eventual product success. A platform is biased against a product type if the type attains greater success, conditional on ex ante assessment. Theoretical considerations and voiced industry concerns suggest the possibility of platform biases in favor of major record labels, and industry participants also point to bias against women. Using data on Spotify curators’ rank of songs on New Music Friday playlists in 2017, we find that Spotify’s New Music Friday rankings favor independent-label music, along with some evidence of bias in favor of music by women. Despite challenges that independent-label artists and women face in the music industry, Spotify’s New Music curation appears to favor them.
Luis Aguiar is Assistant Professor in the Management of Digital Transformation in the Department of Business Administration at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He holds a PhD in Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, an MSc in Economics, Finance and Management from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, and a Masters’ Degree in Economics from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Prior to his appointment at the University of Zurich he was a Research Fellow in the Digital Economy Unit at the European Commission’s Joint Research Center in Seville, Spain.
His research focuses on the economics of digitization and online markets. His work relies on various econometric methods to analyze the effects of technological change on firms, consumers, markets, and welfare, with a particular focus on digital media products. His research has been published in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Political Economy, Information Systems Research, the Journal of Industrial Economics, and the International Journal of Industrial Organization. His research has also been covered by various news outlets, including The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNBC, and Billboard Magazine. He is currently serving as a co-editor for Information Economics and Policy.
To register, please send an email to vstocker@inet.tu-berlin.de
