Transactions have always taken place. For hundreds of years that ‘place’ was a market or, more recently, a shopping mall. But in the past two decades these physical locations have increasingly been replaced by their virtual counterparts – online platforms. Here, author Michael C. Munger demonstrates how these platforms act as matchmakers or middlemen, a role traders have adopted since the very first exchanges thousands of years ago. The difference today is that the matchmakers often play no direct part in buying or selling anything – they just help buyers and sellers find each other. Their major contribution has been to reduce the costs of organising and completing purchases, rentals or exchanges. The Sharing Economy: Its Pitfalls and Promises contends that the key role of online platforms is to create reductions in transaction costs and it highlights the importance of three ‘Ts’ - triangulation, transfer and trust – in bringing down those costs.

This Handbook grapples conceptually and practically with what the sharing economy - which includes entities ranging from large for-profit firms like Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, Taskrabbit, and Upwork to smaller, non-profit collaborative initiatives - means for law, and how law, in turn, is shaping critical aspects of the sharing economy. Featuring a diverse set of contributors from many academic disciplines and countries, the book compiles the most important, up-to-date research on the regulation of the sharing economy. The first part surveys the nature of the sharing economy, explores the central challenge of balancing innovation and regulatory concerns, and examines the institutions confronting these regulatory challenges, and the second part turns to a series of specific regulatory domains, including labor and employment law, consumer protection, tax, and civil rights. This groundbreaking work should be read by anyone interested in the dynamic relationship between law and the sharing economy.

When Robin Chase cofounded Zipcar, she not only started a business but established the foundation for one of the most important economic and social ideas of our time: the collaborative economy. With this important book, she broadens our thinking about the ways in which the economy is being transformed and shows how the Peers Inc model is changing the very nature of capitalism. When the best of people power is combined with the best of corporate power to form "Peers Inc" organizations, a potent creative force is released. The "Inc" in these collaborations delivers the industrial strengths of significant scale and resources, and the "Peers" bring together the individual strengths of localization, specialization, and customization, unlocking the power of the collaborative economy. When excess capacity is harnessed by the platform and diverse peers participate, a completely new dynamic is unleashed. In Peers Inc, Robin Chase brings her provocative insights to work, business, the economy, and the environment, showing: How focusing on excess capacity transforms the economics of what's possible and delivers abundance to all How the new collaboration between the Inc and the Peers enables companies to grow more quickly, learn faster, and deliver smarter products and services How leveraging the Peers Inc model can address climate change with the necessary speed and scale How the Peers Inc model can help legacy companies overcome their shortening life cycle by inviting innovation and evolution Why power parity between the Peers and the Inc is a prerequisite for long-term success How platforms can be built within the existing financial system or outside of it What government can do to enhance economic possibility and protect people working in this new decentralized world Chase casts a wide net, illuminating the potential of the Peers Inc model to address broader issues such as climate change and income inequality, and proves the impact that this innovative economic force can have on the most pressing issues of our time.

With the rollback of net neutrality, platform cooperativism becomes even more pressing: In one volume, some of the most cogent thinkers and doers on the subject of the cooptation of the Internet, and how we can resist and reverse the process.

Airbnb facilitates the booking of over 37 million overnight stays per year. Uber operates in 450 cities in 60 countries. Both claim to be part of the rapidly growing ‘sharing economy’ — but what does that actually mean? Here, Tom Slee offers a razor-sharp examination of the ‘sharing economy’: from its genesis in open-source software and media file sharing, through to the present day popularity of Uber, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, and similar services, which operate outside of normal business regulations, taking on none of the risk or responsibility when something goes wrong. He asks, how did we get from the generosity of what’s mine is yours, to the self-interest and greed of what’s yours is mine?

Sharing instead of owning is one of the major trends in modern (business) life. By changing how people consume, the rise of the sharing economy has the potential to redefine the role of owners, consumers and producers, change their mode of transaction, create innovative business models, disrupt existing industries, and challenge political and regulative institutions. In addition to these practical implications, the sharing economy phenomenon represents a novel playground for theoretical advancement, attracting a multitude of research and researchers from different disciplines. While this can potentially open up new avenues for practice and theory to stimulate each other, they do not seem to go hand-in-hand at the moment. This volume brings together research from a wide variety of theoretical backgrounds and disciplines to encourage academic discourse on the sharing economy phenomenon. It comprises contributions that are grounded in different theoretical perspectives, including business history, economics, strategic management, organization studies, information systems, political science, legal studies, linguistics, and semantics. While all contributions focus on the sharing economy phenomenon, they examine the subject from different disciplinary angles. Together, they provide a coherent and comprehensive overview of research on the sharing economy.

A guide for using computational text analysis to learn about the social world From social media posts and text messages to digital government documents and archives, researchers are bombarded with a deluge of text reflecting the social world. This textual data gives unprecedented insights into fundamental questions in the social sciences, humanities, and industry. Meanwhile new machine learning tools are rapidly transforming the way science and business are conducted. Text as Data shows how to combine new sources of data, machine learning tools, and social science research design to develop and evaluate new insights. Text as Data is organized around the core tasks in research projects using text—representation, discovery, measurement, prediction, and causal inference. The authors offer a sequential, iterative, and inductive approach to research design. Each research task is presented complete with real-world applications, example methods, and a distinct style of task-focused research. Bridging many divides—computer science and social science, the qualitative and the quantitative, and industry and academia—Text as Data is an ideal resource for anyone wanting to analyze large collections of text in an era when data is abundant and computation is cheap, but the enduring challenges of social science remain. Overview of how to use text as data Research design for a world of data deluge Examples from across the social sciences and industry