Sharing economy services are no stranger to controversies. Supporters claim ride-sharing services to be easy to use, good quality and safe, while opponents argue that government-backed compliance measures are in place for a reason and these illegal services undermine hardworking law-abiding taxi drivers.
The sharing economy is a relatively new phenomenon. It combines various ideas and technologies in order to provide new value to market participants who were previously excluded from the market or had limited access to it. At the same time, it increases competition resulting in lower prices, increases entrepreneurship and household incomes.
We proudly present you a collection of articles and analyses devoted to (first and foremost) the sharing economy and secondly, to the digital challenges our region faces. Because as the fictional but nonetheless real Ayn Rand once said, “If you don’t know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn”. And, after all, sharing is caring, right?
The past two weeks were chiefly engulfed by news concerning banks and regulations in relation to cryptocurrencies. Providing some balance on the other side of the spectre were positive pieces introducing Bitcoin´s newfound capacity to cover electricity bill payments in Japan or coffee-breaks in Russia.
In the times of Polish People’s Republic, when religion and all other key aspects of Polish identity were being actively supressed, the interests of the Catholic Church in Poland as an institution and the interests of raison d’etat were aligned to a great extent. Today it is not the case.
Let us remind you that many posts at the state-owned enterprises require an access to classified information. This means that in order to be able to work there one must acquire the so-called “confirmation of security” issued by Internal Security Agency (ABW) or – in the case of military institutions – Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW).
In 2015, the USAID Leadership in Economic Governance (LEV) Program conducted a large-scale survey of small and medium enterprises (Annual Business Climate Assessment in Ukraine). One of the features of this survey is that entrepreneurs themselves identify obstacles to doing business and reforms they expect from the state.
We believe that if the state ceases to intervene in the pricing mechanisms, the profitability of enterprises will improve, investments will increase and administrative burden on business will be reduced. On the other hand, there are certain risks that were the reason why the government abolished this regulation in the form of experiment.
In late 2015 – early 2016, when the ABCA survey was conducted, Ukrainian small and medium businesses mostly assessed business climate in the country as neutral or negative. Only 6% of the polled SMEs believed that business climate was favorable.
Recently, the operations of the newspaper Népszabadság in Hungary were suspended. So what’s the big deal? It was a left to centre newspaper anyway, you will read some other newspaper instead. It generated giant losses, and its numbers have plummeted – you will hear, so the private owners were right to kill it off.
