How the Internet, the Sharing Economy, and Reputational Feedback Mechanisms Solve the ‘Lemons Problem’


Paper by Thierer, Adam D. and Koopman, Christopher and Hobson, Anne and Kuiper, Chris: “This paper argues that the sharing economy — through the use of the Internet and real time reputational feedback mechanisms — is providing a solution to the “lemons problem” that many regulations, and regulators, have spent decades attempting to overcome. Section I provides an overview of the sharing economy and traces its rapid growth. Section II revisits “lemons problem” theory as well as the various regulatory solutions proposed to deal with the problem of asymmetric information, and provides some responses. Section III discusses the relationship between reputation and trust and analyzes how reputational incentives have been used historically in commercial interactions. Section IV discusses how information asymmetries were addressed in the pre-Internet era. Section V surveys how the evolution of the Internet and information systems (especially sharing economy reputational feedback mechanisms) addresses the “lemons problem” concern. Section VI explains how these new realities affect public policy and concludes that asymmetric information is not a legitimate rationale for policy intervention in light of technological changes. We also argue continued use of this rationale to regulate in the name of consumer protection might, in fact, make consumers worse off. This has ramifications for the current debate over regulation of the sharing economy….(More)”

Nudging hits Berlin


Hanno Burmester, Philipp Sälhoff  and Marie Wachinger at Policy Network: “Despite suspicion, the nudge theory may have a place in the process of party reform. Ever since Germany’s Kanzleramt published a job ad in 2014 to recruit three behavioural scientists, “nudging” has become a political buzzword in Berlin. For people outside the Berlin bubble, this may come as a surprise: the British government established its Behavioural Insights Team in 2010 (the less Orwellian nickname is the Nudge Unit). The city of Copenhagen followed soon after and started experimenting with the concept in 2012. Still, nudging seems to have only hit Berlin in recent months, sparking fierce debate among political experts, as well as the German public….

It is not surprising, therefore, that the notions of nudging and libertarian paternalism has quickly found its enemies in the German political debate. Libertarianism here is understood as a radical political ideology which, with the disappearance from federal politics of the centre-right liberal FDP with its partly libertarian agenda, has no representatives at all on the national political stage. Paternalism evokes negative political connotations as well. Moreover, in contrast to the United States, extensive government regulation enjoys widespread public acceptance. At the same time, Germans harbour a deep distrust against opaque and/or seemingly manipulative government actions. The concept of nudging, which explicitly acknowledges that its subjects can be unaware of being consciously influenced, thus feeds into a cultural distrust that, with regards to German and European history, is more than understandable.

Interestingly, however, the political left seems less averse to the idea of stimulating behavioural change through government action. For instance, the German minister of justice and consumer protection, the Social Democrat, Heiko Maas, lauded the approach in an op-ed, saying that it would be wise to acknowledge that citizens do not act rationally all the time. Nudging thus could be a wise compromise “between over-regulation of everyday affairs and laissez-faire politics”.

Nudging is more than a tool for governments, though. We believe it offers advantages in fields that, from an ethical perspective, are less controversial. One of those is the reform of political parties. Since August 2014 we have been  developing new approaches and to party reform in our projectLegitimation and Self-efficacy: Impulses for the Future of Party Democracy. The past decades have shown how hard it is to implement structural reforms in political parties, irrespective of the national context. On the left, for instance, the German Social Democratic party shows a remarkable institutional immunity to change, despite a widespread desire for parties to reflect the demands of rapidly changing societies.

Nudging may provide a tool to identify and analyse current practices of exerting political influence, thereby opening new prospects for changing organisational structures….(More)”

Law school students crowdsource commencement address


Chronicle of Higher Education: “Though higher education is constantly changing, commencement ceremonies have largely stayed the same. A graduating student at Stanford Law School is trying to change that.

Marta F. Belcher is crowdsourcing the speech she will give next month at the law school’s precommencement diploma ceremony, offering her classmates an opportunity to share in crafting that final message.

The point of a student commencement speaker, Ms. Belcher said, is to have someone who can speak to the student experience. But as she learned when she gave the student address at her undergraduate ceremony, it’s not easy for one person to represent hundreds, or even thousands, of classmates.

With all the online collaboration tools that are available today, Ms. Belcher saw the possibility of updating the tradition. So she competed to be the student speaker and invited classmates to contribute to her address.

“That was so clearly the right choice — for Stanford, especially, in the Silicon Valley at the cutting edge of innovation — that we should be the ones to sort of pioneer this new kind of way of writing a graduation speech,” she said.

After holding a number of meetings and fielding questions from skeptics, Ms. Belcher set up a wiki to gather ideas. The months-long effort was divided into three stages. First students would establish themes and ideas; next they would start contributing actual content for the speech; and finally, those pieces would be edited into a cohesive narrative during collaborative “edit-a-thons.”

Since the wiki went up, in February, 85 students have contributed to it….(More)”

A Repository of Open Data Repositories: Open Data Impact Case Studies and Examples


“As part of its core mission, the GovLab has been engaged in a series of ongoing efforts to build awareness and gather evidence about the value, use, and impact of open data around the world – including the GovLab’s Open Data 500.

The GovLab is currently scoping a project with Omidyar Network to build a repository of in-depth, global case studies on existing examples of open data demand, use and impact. The goal of the project is to develop a more nuanced understanding of the various processes and factors underlying the value chain of open data.

As a part of our literature review in undertaking this scoping project, and in time for the 3rd International Open Data Conference, we first mapped several repositories of open data cases and examples that may serve as an empirical foundation for further case-studies.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of organizations that have compiled open data case study repositories in a complementary fashion.

LET US KNOW if you are aware of other compilations of open data examples and case studies we should include as to complete the below overview… by emailing Stefaan Verhulst (stefaan at thegovlab.org).

1. Open Data Case Study Repositories
2. Open Data Portal Repositories
3. Open Data Intermediary Repositories

Opening Criminal Justice Data


Sunlight Foundation: “As part of a new initiative, the Sunlight Foundation has begun amassing an inventory of public and privately-produced criminal justice data. The spreadsheet on this page is a work in progress but we’re publishing it now with hopes that people can use it for research or reporting and even contribute to it. Please go through the spreadsheet — so far we have an inventory started with information from 26 states and the federal government. When we’re done, we’ll have an inventory of data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. You can read more about this project, submit your own work and feedback below….(More) “

Protecting Privacy in Data Release


Book by Giovanni Livraga: “This book presents a comprehensive approach to protecting sensitive information when large data collections are released by their owners. It addresses three key requirements of data privacy: the protection of data explicitly released, the protection of information not explicitly released but potentially vulnerable due to a release of other data, and the enforcement of owner-defined access restrictions to the released data. It is also the first book with a complete examination of how to enforce dynamic read and write access authorizations on released data, applicable to the emerging data outsourcing and cloud computing situations. Private companies, public organizations and final users are releasing, sharing, and disseminating their data to take reciprocal advantage of the great benefits of making their data available to others. This book weighs these benefits against the potential privacy risks. A detailed analysis of recent techniques for privacy protection in data release and case studies illustrate crucial scenarios. Protecting Privacy in Data Release targets researchers, professionals and government employees working in security and privacy. Advanced-level students in computer science and electrical engineering will also find this book useful as a secondary text or reference….(More)”

Navigating the Health Data Ecosystem


New book on O’Reilly Media on “The “Six C’s”: Understanding the Health Data Terrain in the Era of Precision Medicine”: “Data-driven technologies are now being adopted, developed, funded, and deployed throughout the health care market at an unprecedented scale. But, as this O’Reilly report reveals, health care innovation contains more hurdles and requires more finesse than many tech startups expect. By paying attention to the lessons from the report’s findings, innovation teams can better anticipate what they’ll face, and plan accordingly.

Simply put, teams looking to apply collective intelligence and “big data” platforms to health and health care problems often don’t appreciate the messy details of using and making sense of data in the heavily regulated hospital IT environment. Download this report today and learn how it helps prepare startups in six areas:

  1. Complexity: An enormous domain with noisy data not designed for machine consumption
  2. Computing: Lack of standard, interoperable schema for documenting human health in a digital format
  3. Context: Lack of critical contextual metadata for interpreting health data
  4. Culture: Startup difficulties in hospital ecosystems: why innovation can be a two-edged sword
  5. Contracts: Navigating the IRB, HIPAA, and EULA frameworks
  6. Commerce: The problem of how digital health startups get paid

This report represents the initial findings of a study funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Subsequent reports will explore the results of three deep-dive projects the team pursued during the study. (More)”

Platform helps displaced families in Haiti crowdfund new homes


Springwise: “We have seen a number of products — such as HUSH2 — which aim to provide short-term housing for the displaced or homeless in the wake of conflicts or natural disasters. These shelters are undoubtedly vital but they are essentially temporary, so New Story — a non profit based in Haiti — has another solution. New Story is a crowdfunding platform which enables families to raise the USD 6,000 necessary to finance building a new, long-term home.

New Story has partnered with Mission of Hope, which sources families in need and helps them to launch a crowdfunding campaign via the platform. Potential donors can read the family’s story and see a breakdown of expenses — including materials and labor — before choosing to donate. All the money raised goes directly to each project, which is then carried out by local contractors in Haiti. The houses, which are three room block homes, are usually completed within two months, after which families post video updates for their donors….(More)”

Constitutional Conventions in the Digital Era: Lessons from Iceland and Ireland


Paper by Silvia Suteu: “Mechanisms of constitutional development have recently attracted significant attention, specifically, instances where popular involvement was central to the constitutional change. Examples include attempts by British Columbia, the Netherlands, and Ontario at electoral reform, in addition to the more sweeping reforms sought in Iceland and Ireland. Each of these countries’ attempts exemplifies varied innovative avenues to reform involving participatory and partially citizen-led processes aimed at revitalizing politics. The little legal scholarship on these developments has provided an insufficient analytical account of such novel approaches to constitution-making. This Essay seeks to build upon the current descriptive work on constitutional conventions by focusing on the cases of Iceland and Ireland. The Essay further aims to evaluate whether the means undertaken by each country translates into novelty at a more substantive level, namely, the quality of the process and legitimacy of the end product. The Essay proposes standards of direct democratic engagements that adequately fit these new developments and further identifies lessons for participatory constitution-making processes in the digital twenty-first century….(More)”

Montreal plans to become a Smart City with free WiFi and open data


Ian Hardy at MobileSyrup: “Earlier this month, the Coderre Administration announced the Montreal Action Plan that includes 70 projects that will turn Montreal into a “smart city.”

The total allocated budget of $23 million is broken down into 6 sections — listed below with the official description — and is targeted for completion by the end of 2017. Apart from ensuring a fast fiber network, “unleashing municipal data,” and the rollout of “intelligent transport systems” that will bring your real-time info on your subway/bus/car service, the city plans to deploy free WiFi.

According to the statement, Montreal will be deploying wireless access points in 750 locations to have facilitate free public WiFi. The larger idea is to “enhance the experience of citizens, boost tourism and accelerate economic development of Montreal.”…

1. Wi-Fi public: Deploy APs to extend coverage in the area, creating a harmonized experience and provide uniform performance across the network to enhance the experience of citizens, boost tourism and accelerate the economic development of Montreal.

2. Very high speed network, multiservice: Adopt a telecommunications policy, create one-stop telecommunications and urban integrate the telecommunications component in the charter of all major urban projects, so that all players in the Montreal community have access a fiber network at high speed and multi-service, that meets their current and future needs.

3. Economic Niche smart city: Create an environment facilitating the emergence of companies in the smart city economic niche, multiply the sources of innovation for solving urban problems and simplify doing business with the City, so that Montreal becoming a leader in innovation as smart city and accelerate economic development.

4. Intelligent Mobility: Make available all data on mobility in real time, implement intelligent transport systems, intermodal and integrated deployment and support solutions designed to inform users to optimize mobility users in real time on the entire territory.

5. Participatory democracy: Unleashing municipal data, information management and governance and adapt the means of citizen participation to make them accessible online, to improve access to the democratic process and consolidate the culture of transparency and accountability.

6. Digital Public Services: Making a maximum of services available on a multitude of digital channels, involve citizens in the development of services and create opportunities for all, to become familiar with their use, to provide access to municipal services 24/7, across multiple platforms….(More)”