Rideshare drivers pay a proportion of their fares to a ride-hailing platform operator, a commission-based compensation model used by many service providers. To Uber drivers, this commission is known as the Uber fee. By contrast, traditional taxi drivers in most US cities make a fixed payment independent of their earnings. Joshua Angrist discusses these compensation models using an experiment that offered random samples of Boston Uber drivers opportunities to lease a virtual taxi medallion that eliminates the Uber fee.
Image © Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Risdon Photography
Image courtesy of interviewee. February 17, 2022