Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) is an online labor market that defines itself as \u201ca marketplace for
\nwork that requires human intelligence.\u201d Early advocates and developers of crowdsourcing platforms
\nargued that crowdsourcing tasks are designed so people of any skill level can do this labor online.
\nHowever, as the popularity of crowdsourcing work has grown, the crowdsourcing literature has
\nidentified a peculiar issue: that work quality of workers is not responsive to changes in price. This
\nmeans that unlike what economic theory would predict, paying crowdworkers higher wages does not
\nlead to higher quality work. This has led some to believe that platforms, like AMT, attract poor
\nquality workers. This article examines different market dynamics that might, unwittingly,
\ncontribute to the inefficiencies in the market that generate poor work quality. We argue that the
\ncultural logics and socioeconomic values embedded in AMT\u2019s platform design generate a greater
\namount of market power for requesters (those posting tasks) than for individuals doing tasks for pay
\n(crowdworkers). We attribute the uneven distribution of market power among participants to labor
\nmarket frictions, primarily characterized by uncompetitive wage posting and incomplete information.
\nFinally, recommendations are made for how to tackle these frictions when contemplating the
\ndesign of an online labor market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) is an online labor market that defines itself as \u201ca marketplace for work that requires human intelligence.\u201d Early advocates and developers of crowdsourcing platforms argued that crowdsourcing tasks are designed so people of any skill level can do this labor online. However, as the popularity of crowdsourcing work has grown, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13559],"msr-publication-type":[193715],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-250949","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-social-sciences","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2015-12-01","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"383-400","msr_chapter":"4","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"Policy and Internet","msr_volume":"7","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"250955","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","title":"pi_mkt_power","viewUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/pi_mkt_power.pdf","id":250955,"label_id":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_attachments":[],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"text","value":"Sara C. 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