Review #5

We have the pleasure to present you the fifth issue of the 4liberty.eu Review. This time, we have decided to devote our magazine to the topic of the sharing economy at large from the point of view of the Central and Eastern European states in an attempt to become a guiding light on the matter. Sharing is Caring!

Sharing and digital economies usually thrive together in happy symbiosis. Digitalization, easy access to the Internet, apps and smartphones made sharing behaviors easier, and provided a platform for buyers and sellers to find each other. The question of the digital and sharing economy is not a purely economic or legal one.

Regulation of the commercial business sphere by the government is a relatively hot topic these days. According to a new study by Coffey, McLaughlin and Peretto (2016), the current GDP of the US would be 25% higher if federal regulation had not increased since the 1980s.

The Commission’s recommendation is rather supportive towards the collaborative economy in general due to its innovativeness and potential to create jobs. A part of these suggestions is aimed at policy makers: “Absolute bans and quantitative restrictions of an activity normally constitute a measure of last resort”.

One of the key advantages of a sharing economy is that it brings such positive features of the Internet as the instant matching of supply and demand or the availability of information on every participant through the process of individual reviews and references into real everyday life.

The first sharing economy businesses appeared in Lithuania only a couple of years ago. Therefore, there is not enough economic data to evaluate how significant it has been to the Lithuanian economy. The sectors that the sharing economy business models emerge in are rather different and completely separated.

Complaints regarding Airbnb can be split into two distinctive parts. One part is regarding noise, disruption of local communities and other externalities. These complaints are legitimate, but relate to tourism in general, not to the sharing economy in particular.

Our freedom is fragile and must be protected. Polish citizens must feel safe in the modern world that does not look safe at all. Recent years show that threats come from many directions, the most ominous ones from the East and from the South. Terrorism in its broadest sense has become the biggest challenge for the Western world.

If ever there was an example of an unregulated free market approach to the development of a new type of social relations in Bulgaria – it is the spread of the Internet in the country. Bulgaria currently has one of the most developed broadband infrastructures in the EU and frequently makes it in the top 10 of various global connectivity speed rankings.

A sharing economy represents technological progress in all its purity. It is a new way of collaboration between various agents; an efficient way of transforming an existing network of assets into more economic activity. A sharing economy is not a thing, it means thinking!