Uber paid high-profile academics in Europe and the US hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce reports that could be used as part of the company’s lobbying campaign.
Uber’s files, a cache of thousands of confidential documents leaked to the Guardian, reveal lucrative deals with several prominent academics who were paid to publish research on the benefits of their business model. Reports were commissioned as Uber struggled with key city regulators around the world.
University economists were attacked in France and Germany, where enforcement by the authorities was increasingly fierce in 2014-15.
A report from a French academic, who asked for a consulting fee of 100,000 euros, was cited in a 2016 Financial Times report as proof that Uber was a “route out of the French suburbs,” and made the delights of Uber executives.
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What are Uber files?
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Uber’s files are a global investigation based on a fund of 124,000 documents that Mark MacGann, Uber’s former chief lobbyist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa leaked to the Guardian. The data consists of emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges among the Silicon Valley giant’s top executives, as well as notes, presentations, notebooks, informational documents and invoices.
The leaked records cover 40 countries and span from 2013 to 2017, the period in which Uber aggressively expanded around the world. They reveal how the company broke the law, tricked police and regulators, exploited violence against drivers and put secret pressure on governments around the world.
To facilitate a global investigation in the public interest, The Guardian shared data with 180 journalists from 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The investigation was managed and directed by the Guardian with the ICIJ.
In a statement, Uber said, “We have not apologized or will make excuses for past behaviors that are clearly not in line with our current values. Instead, we ask the public to judge us for what we have done over the past five years. and what we will do in the coming years. “
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Using techniques common to party political campaigns, Uber targeted academics and think tanks to help it build a positive narrative, meaning it created well-paid jobs that drivers liked. provide cheap transportation to consumers and increased productivity.
The documents show how their pressure groups planned to use academic research as part of a line of political ammunition production that could feed politicians and the media.
The goal was to use the research to increase the pressure to change the rules that Uber evaded. Although Uber’s involvement in the reports was mentioned, the leaked files set out how it wanted to use the work of academics and their reputation to achieve their goals, and how much they were willing to pay for them.
In France, the 100,000-euro consulting deal was negotiated with an emerging star of university economics, Professor Augustin Landier of the Toulouse School of Economics. Landier agreed to write a report that he described in emails to Uber’s policy and communications team as “actionable for direct public relations to demonstrate Uber’s positive economic role.”
Landier proposed collaborating with David Thesmar, another prominent professor at the best business school in France, the École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris (HEC).
In discussions in February 2015, Uber executives noted that while the price was high, it was worth it, especially if they worked on the report’s messages “to make sure it didn’t come with a potentially negative light “.
The report came amid intense debate over the job loss caused by Uber, with Emmanuel Macron, then France’s economy minister, trying to force economic change.
A member of Uber’s policy team then wrote that “a quantified validation of the new kind of work that Uber creates in Europe, especially when done by an economist of Landier’s renowned stature, would help us tremendously.”
Scholars were excited about Uber’s data because it gave them rare real-time evidence on the effect of prices on markets, one of the key issues among liberal economists advocating free markets.
Uber says opening its data to researchers has provided important information about the changing nature of work and mobility. Photography: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto / Rex / Shutterstock
In exchange for the consulting fee, Landier also wanted to conduct an unpaid independent study with data from Uber. The leak shows that Uber executives were worried that it would mean “we will lose editorial control,” but a senior staff member concluded, “We see a low risk here because we can work with Landier on the study.” and we also decide what data we share with him. ”
The day before the publication of Landier and Thesmar’s report in March 2016, the FT story quoting him appeared. “Transport applications have created jobs for the poorest young people in Paris, but regulatory repression is approaching,” the article said.
Thesmar was quoted in the piece as saying that Uber was a “social changer.”
The report had a third co-author, Daniel Szomoru, an internal economist at Uber. Although his work and academic consulting agreement with Uber were acknowledged in a footnote, the details of the fare were not. Neither Szomoru nor the fact that the report was paid for by Uber was mentioned in the FT article.
Some of the key qualifiers in the report did not appear in press coverage, including the conclusion of academics that Uber drivers who did not make good money tended to leave the platform.
The report detailed how these drivers received “payments” on average of € 19.90 an hour. But this did not take into account the substantial costs that drivers have to pay, such as car rental, insurance and fuel, which had to be deducted from this average “payment” before revenue could be calculated. In the story of FT, which was retweeted by Landier and others, this became simple: “Most earn € 20 an hour, more than double the minimum wage.”
Uber was delighted with the history of FT. “Wow!” wrote one person, congratulating the team that “got it.”
The FT said its article was based on its extensive field reports covering driving disadvantages for Uber, including low wages as well as benefits, and that Uber had not proactively addressed or reported it. . He cited experts other than Thesmar and made it clear that his work was based on Uber data, and maintained his report, a spokesman said.
Landier and Thesmar said their paid consulting for Uber was stated and transparent. They refused to comment further.
Hubert Horan, an economist at the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago and a long-time critic of Uber’s model, said academics were generally unaware that Uber was spending billions of dollars in cash from investors to subsidize both drivers and passengers. and that “payments” to drivers were not the same as revenue. Therefore, claims about job quality or prices were unsustainable, he argued.
“Uber used techniques that were successful in partisan political environments to create the widespread belief that a company that has lost more than £ 20 billion was highly innovative and generated huge profits for consumers and cities,” he said. “He became an unstoppable public relations giant.”
When there was talk of a quick commission of 10,000 euros for another French economist, Nicolas Bouzou, he described that he had “high potential to take advantage of this work in the mainstream media,” Uber executives agreed that organizing -through a think tank “would add credibility to the analysis.” They also talked about “milking” the Landier report at the same time.
Bouzou released his report for Uber in January 2016. He said the report did not claim to be an academic study and Uber’s funding was declared. He acknowledged that the reliability of corporate customer data was “a significant risk to us,” but said he never framed his reports to suit a customer’s marketing needs.
Professor Justus Haucap. Photographer: Ullstein Bild / Getty Images
In Germany, where authorities were cracking down on violations of Uber regulations in 2014, Professor Justus Haucap, a senior economist at the Institute of Competition Economics (DICE) at the University of Düsseldorf, agreed to conduct a study on “the benefits for the consumer of a liberalization of the German taxi. market”.
The study was conducted in collaboration with a consulting group from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), described by Uber executives in internal emails as “the most influential think tank with the current one [German] government ”, so the leak suggested it was a fee of 48,000 euros plus VAT.
Scholars were expected to help promote research at events and in the press, as suggested by a service agreement and leaked bills.
Haucap presented the report at events for influencers and politicians in Berlin.
Haucap, its consulting firm DICE Consult and DIW said that while Uber provided the data, the study met rigorous independent scientific standards and was not predetermined by Uber. They added that it was identified as a payment report for Uber.
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One of the first agreements sealed by Uber with top academics was in 2015 with Professor Alan Krueger of Princeton University in the United States. Krueger had been Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser and was famous as an authority on raising the legal minimum wage, so he had a particular influence. when it came to defending Uber’s impact on employment.
Uber files reveal for the first time that he was paid about $ 100,000 for a study that was widely cited in support of Uber as a job creator precisely because it operated outside the rules. Uber’s internal emails point out that it was “helpful to the press.”
The study subsequently generated controversy. Krueger, who died in 2019, acknowledged his paid consulting work for Uber, but never said how much he had been paid. Other academics said their findings could not be peer-reviewed because their data was not openly shared.
Uber said that …