Gender and the Sharing Economy

While the sharing economy has been celebrated as a flexible alternative to traditional employment for those with family responsibilities, especially women, it presents challenges for gender equality. Many of the services that are “shared” take place in the context of intimacy, which can have substantial consequences for transacting, particularly by enhancing the importance of identity of both the worker and the customer. Expanding on previous research on intimate work — a critical area that exists largely in limbo between the law of the market and the law of the family — this Article, written for the Cooper-Walsh Colloquium, explores the significance of intimacy in the sharing economy and the implications for its regulation of the sharing economy and for sex equality. It argues that the intimacy of many sharing economy transactions heightens the salience of sex to these transactions, in tension with sex discrimination law’s goal of reducing the salience of sex in the labor market. But even if existing sex discrimination law extends to these transactions, the intimacy of the transactions again limits the law’s ability to promote gender equality in the same transformative way that it has in the traditional economy. The sharing economy thus raises serious concerns for proponents of sex equality

The sharing economy, jobs and skills

The global economy is entering the third wave of information technology, characterized by interconnected platforms of people, objects and resources. The Internet of Things (IoT) as a technology-enabler of the Sharing Economy and its global platforms are due to grow exponentially in the next decade, placing demands on skills and changing the employment landscape. The demand for low-value-adding work will decrease as resources are used more effectively whilst the demand for information technology skills will continue to rise in order to meet the requirements of developing IoT products, software, apps, networks, cloud infrastructure, data management and information systems.peer-reviewe

Cities, The Sharing Economy and What's Next

This report seeks to provide an analysis of what is currently happening in American cities so that city leaders may better understand, encourage and regulate the growing sharing economy. Interviews were conducted with city officials on the impact of the sharing economy and related topics, and the report centers around five key themes: innovation, economic development, equity, safety and implementation.The sharing economy is also commonly referred to as collaborative consumption, the collaborative economy, or the peer-to-peer economy. This term refers to business models that enable providers and consumers to share resources and services, from housing to vehicles and more. These business models typically take the form of an online and/or application-based platform for business transactions

The Sharing Economy at the Crossroads. A Conflict Between Social Values and Market Mechanisms

In the last few years the phenomenon of the Sharing Economy rapidly gained momentum. The reasons for this success are multiple but the most important is the tendency to faster exchanges and economic relationships both on the real and the financial market. This awareness made it essential to start the study from the crisis of the hyper-capitalism and of the concept of ownership which is being replaced with that of a more fluid sharing. in this way, we will analyze the words, the concepts and the values at the basis of the sharing economy which influence the effects this new way of acting and living has on the economies and on the socialization processes of the countries involved. In this perspective, we will also try to consider if and to what extent the sharing economy can have a positive impact on sustainable development.In the last few years the phenomenon of the Sharing Economy rapidly gained momentum. The reasons for this success are multiple but the most important is the tendency to faster exchanges and economic relationships both on the real and the financial market. This awareness made it essential to start the study from the crisis of the hyper-capitalism and of the concept of ownership which is being replaced with that of a more fluid sharing. in this way, we will analyze the words, the concepts and the values at the basis of the sharing economy which influence the effects this new way of acting and living has on the economies and on the socialization processes of the countries involved. In this perspective, we will also try to consider if and to what extent the sharing economy can have a positive impact on sustainable development

Regulating the Sharing Economy

In this introductory essay, we explore definitions of the ‘sharing economy’, a concept indicating both social (relational, communitarian) and economic (allocative, profit-seeking) aspects which appear to be in tension. We suggest combining the social and economic logics of the sharing economy to focus on the central features of network enabled, aggregated membership in a pool of offers and demands (for goods, services, creative expressions). This definition of the sharing economy distinguishes it from other related peer-to-peer and collaborative forms of production. Understanding the social and economic motivations for and implications of participating in the sharing economy is important to its regulation. Each of the papers in this special issue contributes to knowledge by linking the social and economic aspects of sharing economy practices to regulatory norms and mechanisms. We conclude this essay by suggesting future research to further clarify and render intelligible the sharing economy, not as a contradiction in terms but as an empirically observable realm of socio-economic activity

The sharing economy

In the last few years, a new technological, economic, social and cultural phenomenon is emerging: the so-called sharing economy. The upheaval introduced by the Web 2.0 allowed the birth of multi-sided platforms which are able to coordinate users without the need of intermediaries. Beyond the positive analysis of the paradigm, on which there is anyway little academic consensus, the economic implications are profound and antithetical: on one hand, it is clear that there has been an increment of the efficiency of the markets disrupted by the Sharing Economy, but on the other it is evident as well how much room this new paradigm made for a possible exploitation of labor, tax evasion and monopolistic behavior by these peer-to-peer platforms. This work aims to paint the big picture of a phenomenon which is as much new as controversial

Pluralizing the Sharing Economy

The so-called “sharing” economy presents one of the most important and controversial regulatory dilemmas of our time—yet, surprisingly, it remains undertheorized. This Article supplies needed analysis. Specifically, the Article offers a regulatory model that distinguishes between two separate kinds of transactions: conventional economic transactions and those that rely on temporary access to goods and services that would otherwise go underutilized (what I call “access-to-excess” transactions). The regulatory regime that this Article proposes would distinguish between true access-to-excess transactions and conventional transactions. The model is rooted in a version of pluralist theory that posits that the state is responsible for cultivating a range of social institutions that offer meaningful economic and social alternatives to individuals. Recognizing access-to-excess transactions in a separate legal regime does not mean countenancing all access-to-excess activity in an under-regulated Wild West of markets. Pluralism has something to offer here as well: I argue that, properly understood, pluralistic principles do not endorse free-market and hands-off policies. Rather, they require state intervention to preserve existing choices, embed and balance diverse values (not only autonomy), ensure fair competition, and protect consumers and employees from strategic and opportunistic behaviors. Thus, pluralistic principles offer the normative foundation for inventive regulation—neither conventional nor free market—that can restrain some of the “sharing” economy’s harms without impeding innovation. Finally, the Article reverses the lens: The “sharing” economy serves as a real-life laboratory to reveal the operation of pluralistic theory and, thus, sheds light on the theory’s limitations. In particular, the “sharing” economy shows how the plasticity of pluralistic theory may enable harmful free-market policies to masquerade as “choice.

Performing the sharing economy

The sharing economy converges around activities facilitated through digital platforms that enable peer-to-peer access to goods and services. It constitutes an apparent paradox, framed as both part of the capitalist economy and as an alternative. This duplicity necessitates focusing on the performances of the sharing economy: how it simultaneously constructs diverse economic activities whilst also inviting the deconstruction of ongoing practices of dominance. Such performances hold open the question of what the (sharing) economy is, suspending it as a space for both opportunity and critique. Drawing on participant observation at a sharing economy ‘festival’ and analysis of the vocabularies of online platforms, the paper outlines three performances of sharing through community, access and collaboration. It argues through these performances that the sharing economy is contingent and complexly articulated. It has the potential to both shake up and further entrench ‘business-as-usual’ through the ongoing reconfiguration of a divergent range of (economic) activities. Whilst offering an antidote to the narrative of economy as engendering isolation and separation, the sharing economy simultaneously masks new forms of inequality and polarisations of ownership. Nonetheless, the paper concludes in suggesting that by pointing to wider questions concerning participation in, access to and production of resources, the sharing economy should not be dismissed. Instead, it should serve as prompt to engage with ‘digital’ transformations of economy in the spirit of affirmative critique that might enact the promise of doing economy differently

The rise of the sharing economy: estimating the impact of Airbnb on the hotel industry

Peer-to-peer markets, collectively known as the sharing economy, have emerged as alternative suppliers of goods and services traditionally provided by long-established industries. We explore the economic impact of the sharing economy on incumbent firms by studying the case of Airbnb, a prominent platform for short-term accommodations. We analyze Airbnb's entry into the state of Texas, and quantify its impact on the Texas hotel industry over the subsequent decade. We estimate that in Austin, where Airbnb supply is highest, the causal impact on hotel revenue is in the 8-10% range; moreover, the impact is non-uniform, with lower-priced hotels and those hotels not catering to business travelers being the most affected. The impact manifests itself primarily through less aggressive hotel room pricing, an impact that benefits all consumers, not just participants in the sharing economy. The price response is especially pronounced during periods of peak demand, such as SXSW, and is due to a differentiating feature of peer-to-peer platforms -- enabling instantaneous supply to scale to meet demand.Accepted manuscrip

Learning User Preferences to Incentivize Exploration in the Sharing Economy

We study platforms in the sharing economy and discuss the need for incentivizing users to explore options that otherwise would not be chosen. For instance, rental platforms such as Airbnb typically rely on customer reviews to provide users with relevant information about different options. Yet, often a large fraction of options does not have any reviews available. Such options are frequently neglected as viable choices, and in turn are unlikely to be evaluated, creating a vicious cycle. Platforms can engage users to deviate from their preferred choice by offering monetary incentives for choosing a different option instead. To efficiently learn the optimal incentives to offer, we consider structural information in user preferences and introduce a novel algorithm - Coordinated Online Learning (CoOL) - for learning with structural information modeled as convex constraints. We provide formal guarantees on the performance of our algorithm and test the viability of our approach in a user study with data of apartments on Airbnb. Our findings suggest that our approach is well-suited to learn appropriate incentives and increase exploration on the investigated platform.Comment: Longer version of AAAI'18 paper. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1702.0284