The World Economic Forum (WEF), organiser of the annual Davos meeting, published a white paper on the sharing economy. The report, titled Collaboration in Cities: From Sharing to ‘Sharing Economy’ distinguishes between the myriad of oft-confused concepts and terms: collaborative consumption, the peer-to-peer economy, collaborative economy, gig economy, on-demand economy and crowd economy.
It maps out the variety of participants involved in the sharing economy, including individuals, social entreprises and cooperatives, non-profit entreprises, for-profit entreprises, local communities and public sector entities. The report draws on examples from ten cities and explores both the opportunities of this growing sector as well as the regulatory, social and fiscal challenges that surround the sharing economy.
The report can be downloaded here.
A more critical and cautious opinion piece on the sharing economy was also published on the WEF website, and can be found here.