Module 10 – Sharing economy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB6lkvwLpCU

The principle of a sharing economy is that commodities or property are shared, either for money or for another equivalent. Specialized online platforms are most often used for this, where supply meets demand. In recent years, one can observe how the topic of the shared economy is gaining more and more attention at the world level. The speed, dynamics and scope of the change point to a substantial long-term trend, and like any change, this phenomenon of the 21st century of the shared economy brings its own risks, which can be, for example, the semi-legal way of its functioning.

Defining the sharing economy is quite difficult, there are currently many different definitions of the sharing economy. For example, Goudin (2016) in his study The Cost of Non-Europe in the Sharing Economy: Economic, Social and Legal Challenges and Opportunities emphasizes the need to determine clear criteria for the correct definition by analysing and compiling existing definitions. He defines the sharing economy as “the use of digital platforms or portals to reduce the scale for viable hiring transactions or viable participation in consumer hiring markets (i.e., ‘sharing’ in the sense of hiring an asset) and thereby reduce the extent to which assets are under-utilized.” In contrast, Frenken and Schor (2017) define the sharing economy as “consumers granting each other temporary access to under-utilized physical assets (‘idle capacity’), possibly for money.”