Putting the sharing economy into perspective
Open accessAbstract
We develop a conceptual framework that allows us to define the sharing economy and its close cousins and we understand its sudden rise from an economic-historic perspective. We then assess the sharing economy platforms in terms of the economic, social and environmental impacts. We end with reflections on current regulations and future alternatives, and suggest a number of future research questions.
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The sharing economy can increase overall load on the environment through higher consumption.
“However, these assumptions have been challenged as the sharing economy can increase overall load on the environment through higher consumption, such as added flights due to lower cost accommodation and more traffic due to convenient and lower cost ride sharing (e.g.Font Vivanco et al., 2015;Frenken and Schor, 2017).”
From Platforms in the peer-to-peer sharing economy (2019) · cites this paper as Frenken and Schor, 2017
Section 3 says sharing platforms can expand demand and that rebound spending may offset environmental benefits, supporting the possibility of a greater environmental load through consumption. It does not give the cited examples of additional flights from cheaper accommodation or more traffic from ridesharing; it says overall ecological effects require further study. No page number is available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Cites
Sharing Versus Pseudo-Sharing in Web 2.0
Belk, R. (2014) · The Anthropologist · doi:10.1080/09720073.2014.11891518 · Cited by 622 · cited 2× · see citing works
“However, while idle capacity was generally available to family and friends for free in the past, researchers and commentators have expressed concern about the viability of non-monetized sharing within networks as people prefer earning money (Belk, 2014; Schor, 2015b).”
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Research works printed but not linked: 9
- Böcker, L., Meelen, T., 2017. Sharing for people, planet or profit? Analysing motivations for intended sharing economy participation. Environ. Innov. Soc. Trans. 23, 28-39, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2016.09.004. · DOI
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- Piketty, T., 2013. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Belknap Press, Cambridge MA/London.
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- Schor, J., Wengronowitz, R., 2017. The new sharing economy: enacting the eco-habitus. In: Brown, H., Cohen, M., Vergragt, P. (Eds.), Sustainable Consumption and Social Change. Routledge, London (forthcoming).
- Zervas, G., Proserpio, D., Byers, J., 2015. A First Look at Online Reputation on Airbnb, Where Every Stay Is Above Average (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract id=2554500, Retrieved February 11, 2015).
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- Authors
- Frenken, K., & Schor, J.
- Affiliations
- Utrecht University (NL)
- Boston College (US)
- Corresponding author
- Frenken, Koen
- Venue
- Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2017-06
- Volume
- 23
- Pages
- 3-10
- ISSN
- 2210-4224 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2582517486
- Cited by
- 1,105
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 55 · 2025: 74 · 2024: 91 · 2023: 106 · 2022: 110 · 2021: 197 · 2020: 202 · 2019: 153 · 2018: 97 · 2017: 20
- FWCI
- 217.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Sharing Economy and Platforms
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Economy and Work Transformation
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Transportation and Mobility Innovations
- Keywords
- sharing economy, sharing economy platforms, conceptual framework, economic history, economic impact, social impact, environmental impact, regulation, platform cooperatives
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