The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism, vol 1
Arun Sundararajan (arun@stern.nyu.edu)
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Arun Sundararajan: NYU Stern School of Business
in MIT Press Books from The MIT Press
Abstract:
Sharing isn’t new. Giving someone a ride, having a guest in your spare room, running errands for someone, participating in a supper club—these are not revolutionary concepts. What is new, in the “sharing economy,†is that you are not helping a friend for free; you are providing these services to a stranger for money. In this book, Arun Sundararajan, an expert on the sharing economy, explains the transition to what he describes as “crowd-based capitalism†—a new way of organizing economic activity that may supplant the traditional corporate-centered model. As peer-to-peer commercial exchange blurs the lines between the personal and the professional, how will the economy, government regulation, what it means to have a job, and our social fabric be affected? Drawing on extensive research and numerous real-world examples—including Airbnb, Lyft, Uber, Etsy, TaskRabbit, France’s BlaBlaCar, China’s Didi Kuaidi, and India’s Ola, Sundararajan explains the basics of crowd-based capitalism. He describes the intriguing mix of “gift†and “market†in its transactions, demystifies emerging blockchain technologies, and clarifies the dizzying array of emerging on-demand platforms. He considers how this new paradigm changes economic growth and the future of work. Will we live in a world of empowered entrepreneurs who enjoy professional flexibility and independence? Or will we become disenfranchised digital laborers scurrying between platforms in search of the next wedge of piecework? Sundararajan highlights the important policy choices and suggests possible new directions for self-regulatory organizations, labor law, and funding our social safety net.
Keywords: on-demand economy; P2P economy; peer economy; peer production; peer-to-peer economy; shareconomy; collaborative consumption; collaborative economy; digital capitalism; digital economy; freelance economy; future of work; gig economy; market economy; network effect; digital labor; economic regulation; fourth industrial revolution; independent contractor; startup economy; crowdsourcing; IoT; internet of things; open innovation; second machine age; dependent contractor; smart contract; gift economy; invisible infrastructure; social safety net; two-sided markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 H0 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0-262-03457-3
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mtp:titles:0262034573
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