Introduction to the Special Issue: Public Policy and Governance in the Sharing Era

摘要

The sharing economy has grown exponentially over the last decade, surpassing well-established firms. Airbnb and Uber are among the most familiar ones that have grown very fast and their market evaluations rival the hotel chains (Hilton or Marriott) and automobile firms (such as Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors) respectively. However, the sharing economy has expanded well beyond accommodation and car sharing. Pet care, home delivery, and personal services such as DogVacay, Instacart, Postulates, Taskrabbit and others have become popular. The sharing economy is also synonymous with gig platforms that connect employers and workers for various tasks (e.g. Amazon Mechanical Turk, Freelancer, Upwork, etc.). Indeed, the sharing economy has become prominent across several sectors, including learning, money, goods, healthcare, utilities, workspace, and other activities. The PricewaterhouseCoopers (2015) pegged the sharing economy to grow to $335 billion dollars by 2025.