We contribute to the emerging literature on quality certification by digital platforms by studying the launch of the Airbnb Plus service, wherein the platform inspects properties and provides a badge that presumably signals the quality of the property and the reliability of the host. Our identification strategy relies on the fact that the Airbnb Plus service was launched in different cities at different times, and listings within the cities received the certification at different times. Using a staggered difference-in-differences estimation strategy in conjunction with suitable matching methods, we found that the Airbnb Plus certification increased the weekly booking rate of Plus listings by about 6.8% on average (direct effect). We also found some evidence that non-Plus listings saw a temporary decline in booking rate when one or more nearby properties received a Plus certification (externality effect). The net impact of the Airbnb Plus service on the platform itself was an annual increase in revenue of about $37,500 for the average 2-kilometer zone in a U.S. city that included one or more Plus listings, as compared to matched zones without any Plus listings (local platform effect). We performed additional analyses, including a randomized experiment, to demonstrate the robustness of our findings. Overall, our results suggest that platform-endorsed quality certification has significant economic impacts—not just on the listings that receive the certification but on other listings on the platform as well as on the platform itself.

中文翻译：

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平台认可的质量认证的经济影响：来自 Airbnb 的证据

我们通过研究 Airbnb Plus 服务的推出，为数字平台质量认证的新兴文献做出了贡献，其中该平台检查房产并提供徽章，该徽章可能表明房产的质量和房东的可靠性。我们的识别策略依赖于这样一个事实：Airbnb Plus 服务在不同的城市不同的时间推出，并且城市内的房源在不同的时间获得认证。使用交错的双重差异估计策略并结合适当的匹配方法，我们发现 Airbnb Plus 认证使 Plus 房源的每周预订率平均提高了约 6.8%（直接效应）。我们还发现一些证据表明，当附近的一处或多处酒店获得 Plus 认证（外部效应）时，非 Plus 房源的预订率会暂时下降。Airbnb Plus 服务对平台本身的净影响是，与没有任何 Plus 房源的匹配区域相比，美国城市中包含一个或多个 Plus 房源的平均 2 公里区域的收入每年增加约 37,500 美元（本地平台效应）。我们进行了额外的分析，包括随机实验，以证明我们研究结果的稳健性。总体而言，我们的结果表明，平台认可的质量认证具有重大的经济影响——不仅对获得认证的列表，而且对平台上的其他列表以及平台本身。