The Sharing Economy and Consumer Protection Regulation: The Case for Policy Change

Abstract

Law. His research interests include economic regulations, competition, and innovation, with a particular focus on public choice and the economics of government favoritism. Koopman received his JD from Ave Maria University and his LLM in law and economics from George Mason University. † Matthew Mitchell is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he is the program director for the Project for the Study of American Capitalism. He is also an adjunct professor of economics at George Mason University. He specializes in economic freedom and economic growth, public-choice economics, and the economics of government favoritism toward particular businesses. Mitchell has testified before the U.S. Congress and his articles have been featured in numerous national media outlets. He served from August 2010 to June 2014 on the Joint Advisory Board of Economists for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mitchell received his PhD and MA in economics from George Mason University. ‡ Adam Thierer is a senior research fellow with the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He specializes in technology, media, Internet, and free-speech policies, with a particular focus on online safety and digital privacy. His latest book is Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom. Thierer is a frequent guest lecturer, has testified numerous times on Capitol Hill, and has served on several distinguished online safety task forces, including Harvard University's Internet Safety Technical Task Force and the federal government's Online Safety Technology Working Group. He received his MA in international business management and trade theory at the University of Maryland. § The Authors would like to thank Veronique de Rugy, Daniel Rothschild, and an anonymous reviewer for numerous helpful comments.

Co-evolution of three mega-trends nurtures un-captured GDP – Uber’s ride-sharing revolution

“…Avital et al (2014) [2] stressed that an economy based on the exchange of capital, assets and services between individuals has grown significantly, spurred by the proliferation of Internet-based platforms that allow people to share underutilized resources and trade with reasonable transaction costs. The movement to the ride-sharing revolution triggered by Uber was also postulated by Blk (2014) [5], Koopeman et al (2014) [17], King (2015) [16] and Ehret (2015) [11]. Ehret referred Rifkin's "Zero marginal cost society" (Rifkin, 2014) [23] and suggested un-captured GDP (Watanabe et al, 2016) [36] that Uber may emerge by stressing that "Soon we will have access to most products and services at almost no marginal cost.…”

Consolidated challenge to social demand for resilient platforms - Lessons from Uber's global expansion

“…This supports the hypothetical view that sufficient time for routinization is required for Uber's expansion. [12] pointed out that new ventures should consider to what degree is the sharing economy creating new markets, rather than simply supplanting older forms of transactions. …”

Model of information system for combined ride-sourcing service

“…In the case of sharing economy, the capacity utilization for high-value assets is enhanced in several ways [2]. Types of sharing in transportation include vehicles (e.g.…”