Jack Melbourne

My research uses novel large-scale administrative datasets to explore urban and labour settings, particularly those with a significant proportion of low-income, non-native individuals. I will be on the 24/25 job market.

JOB MARKET PAPER

Alternative Arrangements? The Gig Economy and Traditional Work

In this paper, I explore how traditional working arrangements are affected by the introduction of a gig platform. I do so by forming a novel dataset that combines comprehensive employer-employee data from the Veneto region of Italy with delivery-level information from Italy's largest on-demand delivery service platform. By exploiting the platform's staggered rollout across the region, I find the platform’s availability increases registered unemployment followed by a delayed rise in employment. Individuals that take up gig work are more likely to have fixed-term contracts with a shorter duration and spend more time registered as unemployed after the platform’s introduction.

WORKING PAPERS

• Govind, Melbourne, Signorelli and Zink – "Neighborhood Engineering -- Place-Based Policies, Labeling and Neighborhood Composition"
• Melbourne, Spadavecchia  – "Migrant integration and the Gig Economy"