I happen to work for a company that does economic impact assessments, and I'm skeptical of this "study", to say the least (it's hard to tell w/o a link to the f

I happen to work for a company that does economic impact assessments, and I'm skeptical of this "study", to say the least (it's hard to tell w/o a link to the full paper, only a press release). Basic unanswered issues: (1) How do you show how many guests would not have come to NY at all if AirBnB didn't exist? This is called the counterfactual. (If they would have come anyway, then hotels lose the same amount of business, leading to no net gain.) And, if money is just being shuffled from midtown to the outer boroughs, how is that a net win for NYC? Broken window fallacy, anyone? (2) I guess you could argue that NYC is better off if the same dollars are going to residents rather than corporate hotel chains (if you show higher multipliers, maybe some good externalities like supporting artists). But that's a very complex assessment in itself, likely way beyond the scope of this study. And you've got to count only net benefit versus the counterfactual. (3) Sure, AirBnB guests might stay longer and spend more (what data is that based on? Don't many people use AirBnB because it's cheaper?), but that correlation doesn't mean that some magic AirBnB pixie dust caused them to do so. And is this offset by less money spent on the lodging itself compared to an hotel?