1,721,004 research outputs found
The Passions and the Interests: Unpacking the ‘Sharing Economy’
No full textThe phenomenal growth of "sharing economy" platforms, the increasing number of economic sectors affected and the conflicting interests among involved stakeholders explain the huge controversies around the "Sharing economy". This report aims to provide a better understanding of this phenomenon and the issues at stake. The platforms reviewed cover both factor (capital, labour) and product markets (goods and services), i.e. the entire economy (and potentially society at large), taking account of both empirical evidence and rhetorical discourses in order to remove confusion and identify both available and lacking empirical evidence.
There is controversy on what the "sharing economy" is or is not. Because of its positive connotation, more companies started to claim belonging to the "sharing economy" although they actually pursue economic self-interest. The conditions of "on-demand workers" raise conflicting views, as earnings for providers are not as high as claimed and practices add to the erosion of the labour contract and to the increase of "contingent" labour. Another controversial issue is whether or not the "sharing economy’ has positive redistributive effects, for which evidence is lacking or not conclusive. Last but not least conflicts, legal disputes, and consumer protection concerns are on the rise. In this respect, the size and scope of a platform may pose very different regulatory and policy challenges which is why a conceptual clarification is needed
Digital skills labour market and productivity (Chapter 4) and Econometric application full version (Annex 2)
Full text linkWhile primarily focussed on the social and economic impact of eInclusion, this book analyses the root causes behind processes of digital inclusion or exclusion and derived from it important implications for policy. In order to do so: a) about 300 hundreds theoretical and empirical sources have been reviewed; b)
1000 cases of eInclusion support initiatives were screened and 125 of them analysed in depth11; c) a wide ranging review of the economic literature on the impact of ICT was conducted; d) an econometric model to assess the impact of possessing or lacking digital skills on employability and wage differentials was
designed and run. In addition to this, the Vienna Study also leveraged and analysed the empirical evidence from another project funded by DG Information Society and Media on ICT potential for the economic and social inclusion of immigrants and ethnic minorities (realised by the Join Research Centre of the European Commission Institute of Prospective Technological Studies, IPTS). The sheer breadth and depth of the theoretical and empirical evidence gathered and analysed in this study is unique and makes it a ground breaking contribution to the field
The Future of Work in the ‘Sharing Economy’. Market Efficiency and Equitable Opportunities or Unfair Precarisation?
No full textThis critical and scoping review essay analyses digital labour markets where labour-intensive services are traded by matching requesters (employers and/or consumers) and providers (workers). It focuses on digital labour markets which allow the remote delivery of electronically transmittable services (i.e. Amazon Mechanical Turk, Upwork, Freelancers, etc.) and those where the matching and administration processes are digital but the delivery of the services is physical and requires direct interaction. The former broad type is called Online Labour Markets (OLMs) and is potentially global. The latter broad type is termed Mobile Labour Markets (MLMs) and is by definition localised.
The essay defines and conceptualises these markets proposing a typology which proves to be empirically valid and heuristically useful. It describes their functioning and the socio-demographic profiles of the participants, reviews their economic and social effects, discusses the possible policy implications, and concludes with a research agenda to support European level policy making. It alternates the discussion of ‘hard’ findings from experimental and quasi-experimental studies with analysis of ‘softer’ issues such as rhetorical discourses and media ‘hyped’ accounts. This triangulation is inspired by, and a tribute to, the enduring legacy of the work of Albert O. Hirschman and his view that ideas and rhetoric can become endogenous engines of social change, reforms, and policies. This essay tries to disentangle the rhetoric with available empirical evidence in order to enable a more rational debate at least in the discussion of policies, if not in the public arena. To do so, an in depth analysis of 39 platforms was undertaken together with a formal review of 70 scientific sources. These two main sources have been integrated with: a) an exploration of 100 media accounts (business press, newspapers, magazines, and blogs); b) 50 reports and surveys produced by ‘interested parties’ (industrial associations, platforms own reports and public relation materials, think tanks with a clear political orientation, NGOs, trade unions, etc.); and c) about 200 indirectly relevant scientific contributions and policy reports (used as sources to contextualise and integrate the above sources, and to derive theoretical and interpretative insights).
While the evidence is limited and inconclusive with respect to various dimensions, the findings of this essay show, among other things, that: a) individuals engage in these activities primarily for money, for a large segment of them this work is their primary source of income, and most are under-employed and self-employed and fewer are unemployed and inactive; b) matching frictions and hiring inefficiencies are widespread and even the OLMs are far from being globalised online meritocracies; c) a behavioural approach to big data exploration should be further applied because there is emerging evidence of heuristic and biases contributing to hiring inefficiencies
Digital labour markets: the hard questions
Full text linkThey have potentially positive and negative effects; it's important to debunk some of the hype and rhetoric, writes Cristiano Codagnone. In 1770 Wolfgang von Kempelen presented a sort of robot called the Turk (hidden inside there was, in reality, a person operating it) that could beat humans at playing chess. The robot toured Europe, eliciting contrasting reactions about the future ..
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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