Vili Lehdonvirta is Professor of Economic Sociology and Digital Social Research at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.[1] He is also a senior research fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, an associate member of the Department of Sociology, Oxford and a former Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute, London. Lehdonvirta is an economic sociologist, whose research draws on theories and approaches from economic sociology, new institutional economics, and political science. His research examines the socio-economic and political implications of new digital technologies.

Research

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Lehdonvirta is one of the world’s most cited authors on gig work and the platform economy.[2] He was the principal investigator of iLabour,[3] a major research project on online freelancing and the gig economy, funded by the European Research Council. He is the creator (together with Otto Kässi and Fabian Stephany) of the Online Labour Index,[4] an economic indicator and international reference[5][6][7] for the measurement of the global online gig-economy. He also led research projects on online labour markets' effects in rural areas,[8] crowd workers'[9] skill development, and changing online worker livelihoods during the Covid-19 pandemic.[10] Lehdonvirta's research on platforms, marketplaces, and digital commerce is summarised in Cloud Empires: How Digital Platforms Are Overtaking the State and How We Can Regain Control, published by MIT Press and translated to Italian by Einaudi.[11] The book was announced as a finalist for a 2023 PROSE Award by the Association of American Publishers (AAP).[12]

Lehdonvirta's earlier research dealt with the history and politics of Bitcoin[13] and blockchain.[14] His research on virtual goods, virtual consumption and digital games is summarised in Virtual Economies: Design and Analysis, co-authored with Edward Castronova, published by MIT Press and translated to Japanese and Chinese.[15]

Lehdonvirta's recent research focuses on the geopolitics of digital infrastructures, such as cloud data centres and GPUs.[16]

Policy work

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Lehdonvirta has advised companies, policy makers, and international organisations in Europe, the United States and Japan. He was a member of the European Commission's Expert Group on the Online Platform Economy, which supports the Commission in monitoring the evolution of the online platform economy for evidence-based and problem-focused policymaking[17] and the High-Level Group on Digital Transmission and EU Labour markets, which provides analysis and advice to the Commission, and explores policy options.

Education

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Lehdonvirta holds a PhD in Economic Sociology from the University of Turku (2009) and a MSc from the Helsinki University of Technology (2005). Previously he worked at the London School of Economics, the University of Tokyo, and the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology. Before his academic career, he worked as a game programmer for Jippii.

Published works

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Books

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Academic articles

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References

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  1. ^ "Professor Vili Lehdonvirta — Oxford Internet Institute". www.oii.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2024-03-01.
  2. ^ Batmunkh, Altanshagai; Fekete-Farkas, Maria; Lakner, Zoltan (2022). "Bibliometric Analysis of Gig Economy". Administrative Sciences. 12 (2): 51. doi:10.3390/admsci12020051. hdl:10419/275322.
  3. ^ "iLabour project".
  4. ^ Stephany, Fabian; Kässi, Otto; Rani, Uma; Lehdonvirta, Vili (July 2021). "Online Labour Index 2020: New ways to measure the world's remote freelancing market". Big Data & Society. 8 (2): 205395172110432. arXiv:2105.09148. doi:10.1177/20539517211043240. ISSN 2053-9517.
  5. ^ "India largest provider of 'online labour'". The Times of India. 2017-07-20. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  6. ^ Osborne, Hilary (2016-09-21). "Online jobs in gig economy growing fast, finds new index". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  7. ^ Querzè, Rita (2021-04-20). "In piattaforma sul web, chi cerca lavoro è nelle mani di un algoritmo". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  8. ^ "Labour markets' effects in rural areas".
  9. ^ "iLabour; crowdworkers' skill development".
  10. ^ Stephany, Fabian; Dunn, Michael; Sawyer, Steven; Lehdonvirta, Vili (July 2020). "Distancing Bonus Or Downscaling Loss? The Changing Livelihood of Us Online Workers in Times of COVID-19". Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie. 111 (3): 561–573. doi:10.1111/tesg.12455. ISSN 0040-747X. PMC 7361450. PMID 32834151.
  11. ^ Lehdonvirta, Vili (2022). Cloud Empires: How Digital Platforms Are Overtaking the State and How We Can Regain Control. MIT Press.
  12. ^ "Senior Research Fellow's book makes final of AAP PROSE Awards". 13 February 2023.
  13. ^ Vidan, Gili; Lehdonvirta, Vili (2019). "Mine the gap: Bitcoin and the maintenance of trustlessness". New Media & Society. 21: 42–59. doi:10.1177/1461444818786220. S2CID 58008386.
  14. ^ "Blockchain blog".
  15. ^ Lehdonvirta, V and Castronova, E (2014). Virtual Economies: Design and Analysis. MIT Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ "The political geography of AI infrastructure".
  17. ^ lucasge (2018-09-26). "Expert group to the EU Observatory on the Online Platform Economy". Digital Single Market - European Commission. Retrieved 2020-02-06.