Scoping the state of the sharing economy and its antecedents at the country level: Cross-country differences in Europe

Abstract

Recent technological advances have contributed to the rise of a new economic paradigm, the so-called sharing economy (SE), where peer-to-peer digital platforms allow individuals to temporarily share their assets. It has involved several industrial sectors generating significant economic impacts worldwide and attracting interest of the academic community. Much emphasis has been put on studying the conditions affecting its growth or establishment. However, these studies have been focused on one or few sectors, or on specific platforms. Moreover, most studies have mainly investigated factors affecting the participation in these platforms at the individual (i.e., user) level even if it has been hinted that the institutional context (i.e., cities or countries) may also affect the state of a SE model. As a result, there is much knowledge about micro-level factors explaining the state of SE, but a comprehensive macro-level analysis is still overlooked. Thus, we aim to fill this gap by performing an empirical analysis on European countries to scope the state of SE and its institutional antecedents.