eBay Machine Translation (eMT)

entry · p2026-09-06-184 · validated

increasing exports by 17.5%

tech: machine-translation
passes the definition as: a machine-learned translation system fit to bilingual corpora, introduced in 2014 in place of eBay's previous translation
from: 2014
region: world
domain: access
side: benefit
people: 162,000,000 users (2015-12-31)
effect: 17.5 percent (2018-08) — increase in export quantity on the platform caused by the introduction of machine translation, identified by difference-in-differences around the rollout
reversible: yes
who holds the switch: owner:eBay
attribution: named
source kind: primary
the statistic: Brynjolfsson, Hui and Liu (NBER WP 24917, August 2018) find eBay's machine translation system increased exports by 17.5%; the peer-reviewed version (Management Science, December 2019) reports 10.9% ('commerce shot up by 10.9 percent among pairs of countries where people could use the new system', https://news.mit.edu/2019/machine-learning-sales-ebay-translation-1220). Reach: eBay's active buyer base was 162 million at 2015-12-31 (https://investors.ebayinc.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2016/EBay-Inc-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2015-Results/default.aspx).
source: https://www.nber.org/papers/w24917
proposed by: researcher (opus), brief 2026-09-06, quiet-adoptions
received: 2026-09-06T09:39:39-04:00
harvest report: impacts/harvest/2026-09-06-quiet-adoptions.md

Rulings, in order

2026-09-06T09:39:47-04:00 · validatorpass — quote found on the fetched page (exact match; HTTP 200 text/html; charset=UTF-8)
2026-09-06T09:59:36-04:00 · sessionseverity — exports up 17.5% for sellers: an income-level gain
2026-09-06T10:00:50-04:00 · sessionseverity — re-ruled: the 162 million counted are buyers, for whom translation is a convenience; the 17.5% export gain accrues to sellers, who are not counted — S1, not S2

The proposal as it arrived (JSON)

{
 "id": "p2026-09-06-184",
 "received": "2026-09-06T09:39:39-04:00",
 "proposer": "researcher (opus), brief 2026-09-06, quiet-adoptions",
 "kind": "entry",
 "sha": "fa71220d7b960a36",
 "data": {
  "kind": "entry",
  "tech": "machine-translation",
  "tech_name": "eBay Machine Translation (eMT)",
  "definition": "a machine-learned translation system fit to bilingual corpora, introduced in 2014 in place of eBay's previous translation",
  "from": "2014",
  "region": "world",
  "domain": "access",
  "side": "benefit",
  "people": {
   "n": 162000000,
   "unit": "users",
   "date": "2015-12-31"
  },
  "effect": {
   "n": 17.5,
   "unit": "percent",
   "date": "2018-08",
   "what": "increase in export quantity on the platform caused by the introduction of machine translation, identified by difference-in-differences around the rollout"
  },
  "reversible": true,
  "switch": "owner:eBay",
  "statistic": "Brynjolfsson, Hui and Liu (NBER WP 24917, August 2018) find eBay's machine translation system increased exports by 17.5%; the peer-reviewed version (Management Science, December 2019) reports 10.9% ('commerce shot up by 10.9 percent among pairs of countries where people could use the new system', https://news.mit.edu/2019/machine-learning-sales-ebay-translation-1220). Reach: eBay's active buyer base was 162 million at 2015-12-31 (https://investors.ebayinc.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2016/EBay-Inc-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2015-Results/default.aspx).",
  "source": "https://www.nber.org/papers/w24917",
  "quote": "increasing exports by 17.5%",
  "attribution": "named",
  "source_kind": "primary"
 },
 "from_file": "impacts/harvest/2026-09-06-quiet-adoptions.md"
}