Flexible Pay and Labor Supply: Evidence from Uber’s Instant Pay

References

• Aksoy CG, Barrero JM, Bloom N, Davis S, Dolls M, Zarate P (2022) Working from home around the world. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall, 281–330.Google Scholar
• Allcott H, Kim J, Taubinsky D, Zinman J (2022) Are high-interest loans predatory? Theory and evidence from payday lending. Rev. Econom. Stud. 89(3):1041–1084.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Andreoni J, Gravert C, Kuhn MA, Saccardo S, Yang Y (2018) Arbitrage or narrow bracketing? On using money to measure intertemporal preferences. NBER Working Paper No. 25232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
• Angeletos G-M, Laibson D, Repetto A, Tobacman J, Weinberg S (2001) The hyperbolic consumption model: Calibration, simulation, and empirical evaluation. J. Econom. Perspect. 15(3):47–68.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Atkin D, Khandelwal AK, Osman A (2017) Exporting and firm performance: Evidence from a randomized experiment. Quart. J. Econom. 132(2):551–615.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Augenblick N, Jack K, Kaur S, Masiye F, Swanson N (2023) Retrieval failures and consumption smoothing: A field experiment on seasonal poverty. Working paper, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.Google Scholar
• Baker SR (2018) Debt and the response to household income shocks: Validation and application of linked financial account data. J. Political Econom. 126(4):1504–1557.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Baker TH, Kumar S (2018) The power of the salary link: Assessing the benefits of employer-sponsored fintech liquidity and credit solutions for low-wage working Americans and their employers. Working paper, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
• Baugh B, Correia F (2022) Does paycheck frequency matter? Evidence from micro data. J. Financial Econom. 143(3):1026–1042.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Baugh B, Wang J (2022) When is it hard to make ends meet? Working paper, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.Google Scholar
• Brune L, Chyn E, Kerwin J (2021) Pay me later: Savings constraints and the demand for deferred payments. Amer. Econom. Rev. 111(7):2179–2212.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023) Length of pay periods in the Current Employment Statistics survey. Accessed September 26, 2024, https://www.bls.gov/ces/publications/length-pay-period.htm.Google Scholar
• Cadena BC, Keys BJ (2022) The labor market consequences of impatience. IZA World of Labor 2022:484.Google Scholar
• Casaburi L, Macchiavello R (2019) Demand and supply of infrequent payments as a commitment device: Evidence from Kenya. Amer. Econom. Rev. 109(2):523–555.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Chen J, Roth J (2024) Logs with zeros? Some problems and solutions. Quart. J. Econom. 139(2):891–936.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Chen MK, Chevalier JA, Rossi PE, Currier L (2023) Suppliers and demanders of flexibility: The demographics of gig work. Working paper, UCLA Anderson School of Management, Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
• Chen MK, Chevalier JA, Rossi PE, Oehlsen E (2019) The value of flexible work: Evidence from Uber drivers. J. Political Econom. 127(6):2735–2794.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (2024) Data spotlight: Developments in the paycheck advance market. Technical report, Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
• Corkery M (2017) Walmart will let its 1.4 million workers take their pay before payday. The New York Times (December 13), https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/business/walmart-workers-pay-advances.html.Google Scholar
• Crosman P (2018) Walmart’s pay-advance app Even used by 200,000 employees. American Banker (July 19), https://www.americanbanker.com/news/walmarts-pay-advance-app-even-used-by-200-000-employees.Google Scholar
• De La Rosa W, Tully SM (2022) The impact of payment frequency on consumer spending and subjective wealth perceptions. J. Consumer Res. 48(6):991–1009.Crossref, Google Scholar
• DellaVigna S (2009) Psychology and economics: Evidence from the field. J. Econom. Literature 47(2):315–372.Crossref, Google Scholar
• DellaVigna S, Malmendier U (2006) Paying not to go to the gym. Amer. Econom. Rev. 96(3):694–719.Crossref, Google Scholar
• DellaVigna S, Paserman MD (2005) Job search and impatience. J. Labor Econom. 23(3):527–588.Crossref, Google Scholar
• DoorDash (2016) Payment details. Accessed September 14, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20160303200309/http://doordash.squarespace.com:80/payment-details.Google Scholar
• Ericson KM, Laibson D (2019) Intertemporal choice. Bernheim BD, DellaVigna S, Laibson D, eds. Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Applications and Foundations 1, vol. 2 (Elsevier, Amsterdam), 1–67.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Etherington D (2017) Uber’s Instant Pay has cashed out $1.3B to drivers in just one year. TechCrunch (April 5), https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/05/ubers-instant-pay-has-cashed-out-1-3b-to-drivers-in-just-one-year/.Google Scholar
• Fang H, Wang Y (2015) Estimating dynamic discrete choice models with hyperbolic discounting, with an application to mammography decisions. Internat. Econom. Rev. 56(2):565–594.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Frakes MD, Wasserman MF (2020) Procrastination at the patent office? J. Public Econom. 183:104140.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Gee K (2017) Workers get faster access to wages with these new apps. Wall Street Journal (June 27), https://www.wsj.com/articles/apps-let-workers-make-every-day-a-payday-1511528400.Google Scholar
• Gelman M (2022) The self-constrained hand-to-mouth. Rev. Econom. Statist. 104(5):1096–1109.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Gelman M, Kariv S, Shapiro MD, Silverman D, Tadelis S (2014) Harnessing naturally occurring data to measure the response of spending to income. Science 345(6193):212–215.Crossref, Google Scholar
• GoBank (2022) Uber debit card account updates and GoBank debit card benefits. Accessed September 14, 2024, https://www.gobank.com/uber-debit-card-program-changes?uclick_id=dab2fce1-40b1-4d48-9887-81da67785974.Google Scholar
• Goda GS, Levy MR, Manchester CF, Sojourner A, Tasoff J (2020) Who is a passive saver under opt-in and auto-enrollment? J. Econom. Behav. Organ. 173:301–321.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hall RE (1978) Stochastic implications of the life cycle-permanent income hypothesis: Theory and evidence. J. Political Econom. 86(6):971–987.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hall JV, Krueger AB (2018) An analysis of the labor market for Uber’s driver-partners in the United States. ILR Rev. 71(3):705–732.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hansen S, Lambert PJ, Bloom N, Davis S, Sadun R, Taska B (2023) Remote work across jobs, companies, and space. NBER Working Paper No. 31007, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
• Jappelli T, Pistaferri L (2010) The consumption response to income changes. Annual Rev. Econom. 2:479–506.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Kaur S, Kremer M, Mullainathan S (2015) Self-control at work. J. Political Econom. 123(6):1227–1277.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Kaur S, Mullainathan S, Oh S, Schilbach F (2025) Do financial concerns make workers less productive? Quart. J. Econom. 140(1):635–689.Google Scholar
• Koren JR (2016) Uber drivers don’t need Green Dot accounts for daily payments anymore. Los Angeles Times (August 20), https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-finance-column-20160817-snap-story.html.Google Scholar
• Koustas DK (2018) Consumption insurance and multiple jobs: Evidence from rideshare drivers. Working paper, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
• Kuchler T, Pagel M (2021) Sticking to your plan: The role of present bias for credit card paydown. J. Financial Econom. 139(2):359–388.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Kueng L (2018) Excess sensitivity of high-income consumers. Quart. J. Econom. 133(4):1693–1751.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lempert KM, Glimcher PW, Phelps EA (2015) Emotional arousal and discount rate in intertemporal choice are reference dependent. J. Experiment. Psych. General 144(2):366–373.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lempert KM, Johnson E, Phelps EA (2016) Emotional arousal predicts intertemporal choice. Emotion 16(5):647–656.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lin W, Wooldridge JM (2019) Testing and correcting for endogeneity in nonlinear unobserved effects models. Tsionas M, ed. Panel Data Econometrics (Academic Press, London), 21–43.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Liu Y, Yang Y, Bai X, Chen Y, Mo L (2022) Do immediate external rewards really enhance intrinsic motivation? Frontiers Psych. 13:853879.Google Scholar
• Löckenhoff CE, O’Donoghue T, Dunning D (2011) Age differences in temporal discounting: The role of dispositional affect and anticipated emotions. Psych. Aging 26(2):274–284.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lyft (2016a) Express pay. Accessed September 14, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20160317052140/https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/213830188-Express-Pay-.Google Scholar
• Lyft (2016b) How to set up your account to get paid. Accessed September 14, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20160421051934/https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/214216927-How-to-Set-Up-Your-Account-To-Get-Paid.Google Scholar
• Mas A, Pallais A (2020) Alternative work arrangements. Annual Rev. Econom. 12:631–658.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Meier S, Sprenger C (2010) Present-biased preferences and credit card borrowing. Amer. Econom. J. Appl. Econom. 2(1):193–210.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Montgomery JM, Nyhan B, Torres M (2018) How conditioning on posttreatment variables can ruin your experiment and what to do about it. Amer. J. Political Sci. 62(3):760–775.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Morduch J, Schneider R (2017) The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ). Google Scholar
• Murillo J, Vallée B, Yu D (2023) Fintech to the (worker) rescue: Access to earned wages, financial health and employee turnover. Working paper, Harvard College, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
• Olafsson A, Pagel M (2018) The liquid hand-to-mouth: Evidence from personal finance management software. Rev. Financial Stud. 31(11):4398–4446.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Parsons CA, Van Wesep ED (2013) The timing of pay. J. Financial Econom. 109(2):373–397.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Shapiro JM (2005) Is there a daily discount rate? Evidence from the food stamp nutrition cycle. J. Public Econom. 89(2–3):303–325.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Smith B (2022) Learning and earning in this new economy: A study of rideshare drivers in Los Angeles. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Pardee RAND Graduate School, Santa Monica, CA.Google Scholar
• Son H (2019) Uber announces deeper push into financial services with Uber Money. CNBC (October 28), https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/28/uber-announces-deeper-push-into-financial-services-with-uber-money.html.Google Scholar
• Uber (n.d.) Instant pay. Accessed September 14, 2024, https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/driver-app/instant-pay/.Google Scholar
• Wooldridge J (2010) Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data, 2nd ed. (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA).Google Scholar
• Woolley K, Fishbach A (2018) It’s about time: Earlier rewards increase intrinsic motivation. J. Personality Soc. Psych. 114(6):877–890.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Zhang CY (2022) Consumption responses to pay frequency: Evidence from “extra” paychecks. Working paper, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI.Google Scholar