Otto worked on the ERC funded project iLabour: The Construction of Labour Markets, Institutions and Movements on the Internet. The project examines online labour markets that form part of the so-called “sharing economy”, examining their social and policy implications.
His work includes collecting data from online labour markets and analysing it with statistical and econometric methods.
Otto earned both Master’s and Doctoral Degrees from the University of Helsinki. His studies concentrated on labour economics with a particular emphasis in econometric and statistical methods.
Econometrics, labour economics, statistics, data analysis, online labour markets
The iLabour project is premised on the idea that a fundamental change is taking place in labour markets. It seeks to understand the social and policy implications of this momentous shift.
This project tracks where digitally transacted work takes place, and compares this data to city- and state-level labour market statistics in order to test whether geographical working patterns differ between online and traditional labour markets.
With Dr Otto Kässi, and Professor Vili Lehdonvirta
Video abstract of the paper 'The Global Platform Economy: A New Off-Shoring Institution Enabling Emerging Economy Providers', published in the Journal of Management
29 January 2025
A new study led by an international research team, including Dr Fabian Braesemann from the Oxford Internet Institute, part of the University of Oxford, shows how Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are reshaping the workforce.
28 June 2022
The Internet promised to spread economic opportunities to rural areas, but employment trends show the opposite. Prof Vili Lehdonvirta and Dr Fabian Braesemann discuss whether online labour platforms can help counter this trend.
7 April 2022
Dr Otto Kässi and Professor Vili Lehdonvirta’s new study examines how digital skill certificates are affecting the labour market and impacting jobseekers and employers.
8 November 2018
Online labour platforms that connect freelance workers and clients around the world are emerging as an alternative to traditional offshoring, according to new Oxford Internet Institute research.
Forbes, 20 October 2022
During the pandemic, many speculated whether we might finally be seeing the death of distance, with people choosing to work remotely from places where access to nature was more plentiful and house prices were more affordable.
Spend Matters, 22 September 2016
Vili Lehdonvirta and fellow researcher Dr Otto Kässi have announced the public launch of the Online Labour Index (OLI), a first-of-its-kind metric to track utilization of "online labor" in the so-called "gig economy".
