No Uber, no tourists? Public attitudes toward municipal regulation of the sharing economy

ABSTRACT

The rise of the sharing economy has led to political fights between users of these platforms, local government officials, city residents, and members of the traditional taxi and hotel industries. Municipalities have crafted policies that restrict the operation of sharing economy companies in a variety of ways. However, scholars have not systematically analysed public attitudes regarding these policies. What local-level regulations of the sharing economy, if any, do citizens support? What factors explain citizen support for municipal regulation of the sharing economy? Further, given that these services are popular with travellers, what impact do local sharing economy restrictions have on tourism intentions? In this article, I analyse a series of survey questions from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) and find that a majority of Americans support some, but not all, sharing economy regulations. Additionally, local restrictions on sharing economy companies are associated with decreased tourism intentions.

KEYWORDS:

• Local government
• sharing economy
• regulation
• tourism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Jennifer M Connolly

Jennifer M. Connolly is an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami. She is a public management scholar with a focus on local governance. Her research examines the relationship between elected councils and appointed managers, municipal service provision and resource allocation, and communication between local governments and their residents about current policy issues.