The sharing economy : definition, measurement and its relationship to capitalism
(2021) In International Review of Entrepreneurship 19(1). p.69-92- Abstract
- For the past decade, the sharing economy has not only grown but also expanded to cover a wide variety of different activities across the globe. Despite a lot of research, there is still no agreement on how to define and measure the sharing economy, and no consensus on whether the sharing economy is a part of or an alternative to a regular capitalist economy. This paper contributes by presenting a framework for classification of firms and services in three dimensions (decentralized supply, ad hoc matchmaking and microtransactions), thus effectively creating a definition of the sharing economy. Using clickstream data collected in 2016-2017, we show that the sharing economy consists of many services, but the distribution is highly skewed: Six... (More)
- For the past decade, the sharing economy has not only grown but also expanded to cover a wide variety of different activities across the globe. Despite a lot of research, there is still no agreement on how to define and measure the sharing economy, and no consensus on whether the sharing economy is a part of or an alternative to a regular capitalist economy. This paper contributes by presenting a framework for classification of firms and services in three dimensions (decentralized supply, ad hoc matchmaking and microtransactions), thus effectively creating a definition of the sharing economy. Using clickstream data collected in 2016-2017, we show that the sharing economy consists of many services, but the distribution is highly skewed: Six percent of the services account for 90 percent of the traffic. Using cross-country regressions for 114 countries, we show that while the most important determinant of sharing economy usage is internet access, usage is significantly higher in countries with less regulation of capital, labor, and business. We conclude that the sharing economy enables new types of entrepreneurial efforts within the digitized capitalist economy. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/0c4dc5f5-483b-45b0-b9f8-27ec8267762c
- author
- Bergh, Andreas LU ; Funcke, Alexander and Wernberg, Joakim LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2021
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Economic freedom, Sharing economy, Broadband, Capitalism
- in
- International Review of Entrepreneurship
- volume
- 19
- issue
- 1
- article number
- 1645
- pages
- 24 pages
- publisher
- Academic Publishing
- ISSN
- 2009-2822
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 0c4dc5f5-483b-45b0-b9f8-27ec8267762c
- alternative location
- https://www.senatehall.com/entrepreneurship?article=679
- date added to LUP
- 2025-04-23 11:40:25
- date last changed
- 2025-05-15 13:37:09
@article{0c4dc5f5-483b-45b0-b9f8-27ec8267762c,
abstract = {{For the past decade, the sharing economy has not only grown but also expanded to cover a wide variety of different activities across the globe. Despite a lot of research, there is still no agreement on how to define and measure the sharing economy, and no consensus on whether the sharing economy is a part of or an alternative to a regular capitalist economy. This paper contributes by presenting a framework for classification of firms and services in three dimensions (decentralized supply, ad hoc matchmaking and microtransactions), thus effectively creating a definition of the sharing economy. Using clickstream data collected in 2016-2017, we show that the sharing economy consists of many services, but the distribution is highly skewed: Six percent of the services account for 90 percent of the traffic. Using cross-country regressions for 114 countries, we show that while the most important determinant of sharing economy usage is internet access, usage is significantly higher in countries with less regulation of capital, labor, and business. We conclude that the sharing economy enables new types of entrepreneurial efforts within the digitized capitalist economy.}},
author = {{Bergh, Andreas and Funcke, Alexander and Wernberg, Joakim}},
issn = {{2009-2822}},
keywords = {{Economic freedom; Sharing economy; Broadband; Capitalism}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{69--92}},
publisher = {{Academic Publishing}},
series = {{International Review of Entrepreneurship}},
title = {{The sharing economy : definition, measurement and its relationship to capitalism}},
url = {{https://www.senatehall.com/entrepreneurship?article=679}},
volume = {{19}},
year = {{2021}},
}