Love it or hate it, Uber is a much safer way to get from A to B in unfamiliar places.  It is also cheaper than a taxi in most situations.  For example, it cost me about $4 to take an Uber to the airport in Mumbai and $11 in Bangkok on my latest trip. 

Unconvinced?  Here are some of the other reasons I use Uber when traveling:

• Easy to share your status: You can digitally share your trip with a friend.  If I’m taking a ride late at night, I’ll often turn on this feature so someone knows where I am at all times. 
• Reduce language barriers: Because you type in your destination, there is little room for confusion if there is a language barrier between you and your driver.
• Double-checks driver: You can watch your progress on the app which often puts me at ease when traveling by myself.
• No negotiation, no cash, no problem: You do not need to negotiate or have cash with an Uber and you can easily see the estimated fare.  This is probably the best benefit of Uber when abroad, especially if you don’t like to haggle or can’t speak the local language.
• Door-to-door: While taking public transport will always be cheaper, if you’re carrying a heavy backpack of schlepping luggage, the door-to-door aspect of an Uber is a real plus.
• Benefits: And of course, we must always consider the points. With the Chase Sapphire Reserve you’ll get 3x the points for each dollar spent with Uber.  However, if you’re traveling in the US,  the best deal is with the Amex Platinum card.  Each year Amex gives you a $200 Uber credit ($15/month and $35 in December) and Uber VIP status, which gives you access to better cars and more experienced drivers in select locations.

If you want to start enjoying the benefits of one of the few hobbies in the world that will allow you to travel the world, this post is for you.  The best card for starting out is the Chase Sapphire Reserve.  Unfortunately, its 100,000 point sign up bonus was short lived—Chase lost millions on it.   The sign up bonus is now 50,000 points (worth at least $625), if you spend $4,000 in the first three months. The points you earn with this card can be transferred 1:1 to loyalty programs at major airlines (United, Southwest, British, Korean, Virgin, etc.) and major hotel chains (Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, Ritz Carlton, etc.).  If you don’t have time to check award availability, each point is worth 1.5 cents if you purchase travel (flights, hotels, cars) through Chase’s travel portal.
 
The card has a high fee ($450), but it is worth it.  You get a $300 travel credit, which can be used for just about any travel expense (it’s automatically credited to your account as soon as Chase notices an applicable expense), Global Entry, universal lounge access via the Priority Pass system, and 3x the points for dining and travel.   Here’s a great article from one of my favorite blogs that explains all of the benefits: http://thepointsguy.com/2016/08/all-about-chase-sapphire-reserve-perks/  

If you listen to podcasts, you're probably aware that the 35 leading podcast publishers (headed up by NPR's Israel Smith) are joining forces this month to promote podcasts through a word-of-mouth campaign called #trypod (i.e., try a podcast).  If you don't listen to podcasts, let this post be your gateway to a new world of mind candy.  

I rarely do anything without having some interesting person talk into my ear.  I love podcasts because of the diversity of offerings, the constantly-improving quality, and the fact that while I might curate the genre (economics, politics, etc.), I do not curate the content.  It thus helps me, to a degree, avoid the filter bubble. 

Here are some of my favorite podcasts along with some great first listens to help you see how easy it is to get hooked.  While not every episode on every podcast is great, more likely than not you're going to hear something interesting with these.

99% Invisible. This podcast is focused on the design of things people often overlook. I always find it incredibly fascinating.  The host is named Roman Mars and his voice is as cool as his name.
 
Favorite episodes:

• Walk This Way: All about wayfinding.  I no longer look at airports the same.
• The Straight Line is a Godless Line:  This is about an architect who refused to use straight lines. Make sure you look up some of the pictures, if you listen.
• Deaf Spaces: Discusses the design decisions of spaces at Gallaudet, a university for the deaf.  I had never really thought about how space can facilitate visual communication between people before this episode.
  
  

Freakonomics. From the same guys who wrote the book.  This podcast can sometimes come off as a bit trite, but with most episodes, I usually find I learn something.   

Favorite episodes: 

• Should Tipping be Banned: Discusses the craziness that is tipping in America.
• Parking is Hell: All about how about how the concept of free parking is absurd.
• There’s No Such Thing as a Free Appetizer: It's all about the history and consequences of the free appetizer.  

Planet Money. This is an economics podcast that has a penchant for explaining difficult concepts in really interesting ways. It’s created by NPR, so you might have heard some of the stories on All Things Considered or Marketplace, but the podcast’s episodes are usually much more in depth.

Favorite episodes: 

• The Chicken Taxes:  One of my favorite episodes about how law influences behavior. 
• The Taxi King:  About a guy who bought a bunch of NYC taxi medallions and now is pretty much screwed.
• The Big Red Button:   I am fascinated with driverless cars.  I think they are going to change the world and will be ubiquitous in our lifetime. This episode is about what humans will need in order to feel comfortable using new technologies.
• What Two Pasta Factories Tell Us About the Italian Economy. Focuses on the work cultures of two different Barilla pasta factories--one in northern Italy, one in southern Italy.  Great case study on expectations and behavior.
• The History of Light. This episode pretty much explains how improvements in light from candles to kerosene to bulbs made human progress possible.  Wow.

Startup.  This podcast is about the starting of a podcast company.  It provides a very raw, often cringe-worthy look into a real startup. Season 1 is much, much better than subsequent seasons.
 
Revisionist History.  Sort of like Freakonomics, Gladwell can be a bit cheesy and preachy, but his podcasts are incredibly sticky. 
 
Favorite episodes: 

• Food Fight: The second of a three-part miniseries (the whole thing is worth listening to) on opening up college to all socioeconomic classes.  It focuses on a seemingly unlikely target: how the food each school serves in its cafeteria can improve or distort the educational system.  Good lesson on unintended consequences.
• The Lady Vanishes: Great episode on moral licensing--the idea that good deeds strengthen our positive self-image but also make us less worried about the consequences of immoral behavior, and therefore, more likely to make immoral choices. 

Invisibilia.  This podcast explores the hidden forces that influence our lives.  Can be hit or miss.

Favorite episodes:

• The Problem with the Solution: Mindblowing episode on one Belgium’s town approach to care of the mentally ill. 
• Outside In:   Great episode on playing the part. 

I have been researching the sharing economy since 2014—when you could search for the term ‘Uber” on Westlaw and only come up with articles in German.  My perspective on this “new economy” has very much evolved.  I started off, like many, excited about the potential of the sharing economy to connect people, unlock economic potential, and promote more sustainable lifestyles.  I argued in my first article on the subject that governments should not impose traditional, ill-fitting regulations on sharing economy platforms. Instead, they should give this nascent industry room to experiment and self-regulate.  I believed this approach was appropriate for several reasons. Most notably, I argued that too much regulation (particularly in the form of licensing requirements) would change the incentive calculus for supply-side participants (i.e. Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts) thus causing the user base to collapse.  I also argued that self-regulation is possible because reputation systems, which are based on the ratings and reviews given by each party in a transaction, effectively regulate participant behavior.   
 
Furthermore, in that paper, I distinguished sharing economy companies from incumbent firms and made explicit my definition of the former.  My definition is grounded in four key characteristics: 1) the company has an online platform; 2) that platform relies on microbusinesses to provide goods and services; 3) the goods and services offered by the microbusinesses consist of their excess capacity in their personal assets and schedules; and 4) the platform facilitates high-powered information exchange about user trustworthiness via reputation systems. If a platform does not demonstrate all four requirements, it is not a part of the sharing economy.  This working definition is critical, because without a clear understanding of what the sharing economy is, we cannot begin to understand how it is regulated, how it should be regulated, or who should regulate it. 
 
In my second article, I developed a theoretical approach for regulating the sharing economy, which combined principles of New Governance theory and the concept of lex informatica to form Regulation 2.0 (an idea first mentioned by blogger Nick Grossman).  Regulation 2.0 incorporates New Governance design principles, particularly the use of performance standards and audited self-regulation, and technology to efficiently police behavior. Mediated through technology, Regulation 2.0 holds potential to help regulators meaningfully collaborate with stakeholders to efficiently achieve the desired ends of regulation.  On this blog, I plan to highlight new Regulation 2.0 approaches.
 
In March of 2016, I went abroad and immersed myself in the sharing economy.  I tried every service I could, from Airbnb to Eatwith, a platform that allows you to find someone who is willing to have you over for dinner for a fee, to Trip4Real (recently purchased by Airbnb), which basically allowed me to hire a friend for the day.  From this primary research, I began to exit the honeymoon stage of my love affair with this new economy.
 
The first problem I noticed related to reputation systems.  I had a less than stellar Airbnb experience in Malta (major issues with Internet connectivity, no washer and dryer even though they were explicitly mentioned on the listing, etc.).  However, I found that I was personally reticent to give negative feedback.  This irrational behavior on my part made me question whether or not the reputation systems are really fed accurate data. As it turned out, my hunch was correct and in my third paper, I synthesized new and existing evidence from the fields of economics, management, and behavioral psychology to demonstrate that feedback scores are likely skewed to the positive.  I then discussed the implications of these findings on the risk-calculus for consumers in the sharing economy and the ability of sharing economy companies to self-regulate.
 
The more time I spent critically examining the sharing economy the more I realized that the big companies within the sharing economy like Airbnb and Uber were not actually meeting my definition anymore.  Nowadays, full-fledged businesses (as opposed to microentrepreneurs) are the biggest users of sharing economy platforms like Airbnb and they are not simply utilizing their excess capacity, they are putting new capacity online.  By contrast, some platforms are greatly controlling the activities of their supply-side users, which perhaps tip those users into the “employee” category and outside of the microentrepreneur category.   Outgrowing my definition was not itself a cause for concern—businesses adapt and change all the time.  However, what was concerning was that these companies were still using the positive rhetoric of the sharing economy to avoid regulation either by subverting it all together or by pushing for new regulations that effectively codified their existing business practices.
 
These observations inspired my most recent paper that is forthcoming in the Emory Law Journal, The Myth of the Sharing Economy and Its Implications for Regulating Innovation.  In the weeks to come, I will explain the key ideas in that paper and demonstrate how sharing economy companies use rhetoric to avoid or minimize regulation in the start-up stage and when it is time for regulation, they push hard (and often succeed) to write the rules that govern them.