Digital Labor Markets and Global Talent Flows

John Horton, William R. Kerr and Christopher Stanton

Harvard Business School Working Paper

2017

Digital labor markets are rapidly expanding and connecting companies and contractors on a global basis. We review the environment in which these markets take root, the micro- and macro-level studies of their operations, their ongoing evolution and recent trends, and perspectives for undertaking research with micro-data from these labor platforms. We undertake new empirical analyses of Upwork data regarding 1) the alignment of micro- and macro-level approaches to disproportionate ethnic-connected exchanges on digital platforms, 2) gravity model analyses of global outsourcing contract ﬂows and their determinants for digital labor markets, and 3) quantiﬁcation of own- and cross-country elasticities for contract work by wage rate. Digital labor markets are an exciting frontier for global talent ﬂows and growing rapidly in importance.