What drives pricing behavior in Peer-to-Peer markets? Evidence from the carsharing platform BlaBlaCar

•Our paper investigates how prices are determined on peer-to-peer markets.•We analyze whether experience and reputation in sharing economy platforms have the same impact as in traditional markets.•We provide the first empirical analysis of the world's leading intercity carsharing platform, BlaBlaCar.•We show that more-experienced drivers on BlaBlaCar set lower prices and sell more seats than less-experienced drivers.•We find evidence of discrimination against drivers of a minority group (Arabic drivers) that sell less seats on Blablacar. We examine how price and demand are determined on peer-to-peer platforms and whether experience and reputation have the same impact as in traditional markets. We use data from the world's leading intercity carsharing platform, BlaBlaCar, which connects drivers with empty seats to riders. We find that pricing decisions evolve as drivers gain experience with the platform. More-experienced drivers set lower prices and, controlling for price, sell more seats. Our interpretation is that more-experienced drivers on BlaBlaCar learn to lower their prices as they gain experience; accordingly, more-experienced drivers earn more revenue per trip. In total, our results suggest that peer-to-peer markets such as BlaBlaCar share some characteristics with other types of peer-to-peer markets such as eBay but remain a unique and rich setting in which there are many new insights to be gained.