Independent research desk

Spare Beam

Editorial coverage of published research on side income, platform earnings, and the instruments used to measure work beyond a primary job.

In the library

Three summaries of published work. Each names the researchers involved and the limits those researchers have stated about their own methods.

Survey questions, bank records and tax files produce different pictures of platform pay; the gap between them is itself a research finding.

Discussed: Farrell and Greig; Abraham and colleagues; Collins and colleagues.

Official series on multiple jobholding understate some forms of secondary work; revised questionnaires and administrative data change the count.

Discussed: Katz and Krueger; BLS Contingent Worker Supplement; Abraham and Amaya.

The BLS definition of electronically mediated work, the first field estimates, and the critiques that followed about coverage and wording.

Discussed: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Allard and Polivka; subsequent methodological notes.

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Sources are named in the text: Every finding described here is attributed to identifiable researchers and to work that has been published. Figures without a traceable source are not used.
Disagreement is reported in the same paragraph: Where a finding is contested, the contest appears next to the finding. Where a method has a known limitation, that limitation is described in the article that relies on it.
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What does this site publish?: Summaries of published academic and institutional research on side income, platform earnings and related labour statistics. Each article names the researchers and describes the limits of the methods used.
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