2021-09-30-IEA-共享经济_陷阱与承诺（英）_171页_2mb

The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises

This work argues that the core function of online platforms (e.g., Airbnb, Uber) is to reduce transaction costs, enabling the "sharing" or "commodification of excess capacity." Key themes include:

1. Transaction Costs: The fundamental barriers to exchange (information finding, payment clearing, trust building). Platforms solve these problems.
2. Platform Revolution: Digitally mediated exchanges are transforming markets historically ("such as the Neolithic and Industrial Revolutions").
3. Promises: Greater efficiency, lower costs, wider access to goods/services, utilizing idle resources (e.g., excess housing, car) more effectively. Prices reflect marginal costs rather than average ones for many transactions.
4. Pitfalls & Antitrust: The emergence of powerful platforms raises antitrust questions focused on market power and "permissionless innovation." Regulators often struggle to control innovation by:
   • Misapplying traditional antitrust concepts (monopoly pricing) to platform competition.
   • Failing to embrace new regulatory frameworks focused on limiting platform power.
   • Banning activities that improve efficiency (like ride-sharing apps) due to regulatory inertia or protectionism.
   • Potentially increasing inequality if not all benefit from the sharing/economy.
5. Conclusion: The platform revolution is driven by reducing transaction costs, fostering "permissionless innovation," and commodifying previously wasted capacity. This changes ownership patterns but remains a complex phenomenon with both benefits and challenges.