Platform Economics: Rhetoric and Reality in the "Sharing Economy"

✍ Scribed by Cristiano Codagnone, Jacob Matthews, Athina Karatzogianni

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 216
• Series: Digital Activism and Society: Politics, Economy and Culture in Network Communication
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Platform Economics tackles head on the rhetoric surrounding the so-called "sharing economy", which has muddied public debate and has contributed to a lack of policy and regulatory intervention.
The book sheds light on the sharing economy debate by offering an in-depth analysis both of rhetoric employed by sharing economy actors, and by mapping key aspects of digital labour markets. The platform is discussed both as a source of innovation and growth and as a matter of policy concern over competition, tax collection, consumers' protection, privacy, and algorithms transparency, and the future of work.
The authors show that actors in the sharing economy have not only used the narratives describing the initial phase of the sharing movement to their advantage, but have also succeeded in enlisting diffuse interests as their allies. The authors' research draws particular attention to the predicted advent of technological unemployment in conjunction with widespread concern over the robotisation of jobs.
Advocating an inter-disciplinary approach in which economics, sociology, anthropology, legal studies, and rhetorical analysis converge, this text will prove invaluable to students, researchers and economists alike.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Lists of Figures, Tables and Boxes
Figures
Tables
Boxes
Introduction
A Rhetoric-Driven ‘Negative Policy Bubble’
Elective Affinity
Interpretative Framework: Sharing Rhetorics and Evidence-Based Policy
Sources and Structure of the Book
Chapter 1: Platform Economics and the Sharing Economy: A Primer
Introduction
In Search of Two- and Multi-sidedness
Classifications, Determinants of Size and Market Functioning
Size Determinants
Inherently Frictional Markets
Centralisation Versus Decentralisation
On-demand Versus Scheduled Transactions
Ratings and Related Governance Issues
Back to ‘Sharing Platforms’
Chapter 2: Rhetoric, Reality, Impacts and Regulation in Labour Intermediation Platforms
Introduction
Trajectory and Conceptual Issues
How Big is the Sharing Economy?
Rhetorical Discourses
Lobbying as Framing: Harnessing Rhetoric and Evidence
Box 1: Airbnb Self-reported Impacts.
Box 2: Uber’s Self-reported Impacts.
Social Capital and Motivation
Distributional and Stratification Effects
Environmental and Socio-economic Impacts
Environmental Impacts
Socio-economic Impacts
Consumer Welfare and Distributional Effects
Ratings and Platforms Functioning: Self-regulation?
From Legal Battles towards Regulation and Policy?
Box 3: Conflicts, Bans and Court Cases.
Chapter 3: Digital Labour Markets in a Broader Perspective
Introduction
Conceptualisation and Dimensional Relevance
Box 4: Online Micro-tasking Ideal-typical Functioning.
Box 5: Online Tasking, Ideal-typical Functioning.
Rhetorics and Economic Hypotheses
Descriptive Socio-economic Picture
Socio-demographic Contours of Labour Providers
Motivations
Employment Status
Working Conditions: Earnings and Other Aspects
New Evidence on Labour Providers in Context of NSW and Access to Social Protection
Evidence on Broadly Defined Market Efficiency Hypotheses
Matching Frictions, Market Inefficiencies and Biases
Super Star or Long Tail Effects?
Why Do Firms Hire from OLMs?
Net Aggregate Effects
Distributional Effects in MLMs
Digital Labour Markets in a Broader Perspective
Technological Trends: Digital Labour Markets and the Future of Work
Not Simply Technology
Non-standard Work and its Effects
From Legal Battles towards Regulation and Policy?
US Legal Disputes
Legal Disputes in Europe
The Debate
EU-level Context and Developments. There have been various regulatory and policy developments in many of the EU28 countries that would be beyond the scope of this final paragraph to review. We conclude instead by drawing the contours on EU-level general f
EU-level Flexibilisation of Work. NSW arrangements have been introduced and regulated widely at EU level with the three key directives for part-time (1997), fixed-term (1998) and temporary agency contracts (2008). As noted (Peers, 2013), the spirit of the
The EU Agenda on Collaborative Economy. In June 2016, the European Commission presented a European agenda for collaborative economy, a non-binding act of soft law that aims at adapting and interpreting the existing regulation, reassuring rights and obliga
European Parliament Resolutions. The European Parliament has been pushing to bring providers in digital labour markets more firmly into national social security systems amid concern that a changing labour market might leave them out from entitlements and
Chapter 4: Ideological Production in Digital Intermediation Platforms
Introduction
Integrated Theoretical Framework for In-depth Qualitative Ideological Production Analysis
Methodology: In-depth Interviews, Participant Observation, Secondary Document Analysis
‘Sometimes It’s Too Ideological’: The Challenge of Collaborative Players to Steer the ‘Conversation’
Against, with and Beyond State and Capital: Commons Discourses, Multifarious and Paradoxical
And in the Name of Platform Co-operativism: ‘We’re Interested in Exploring the Whole Spectrum of Options’
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Conclusions and Research Agenda
Introduction
From Rhetoric to Conceptual Clarity and Evidence
Evidence General
Policy and Regulation: Debate and Open Issues
Labour-specific Issues
Our View on Labour Issues
Lobbying as Rhetorical Framing: The Role of Evidence and a Research Agenda for the Future
References
Index