In this article, we take stock of the ambivalent and contested nature of the sharing economy. Considering the ‘sharing economy’ as an umbrella construct and an essentially contested concept, we ...position the sharing economy as resting on three foundational cores: (1) Access economy, (2) Platform economy, and (3) Community-based economy. We show how each core holds distinct promises and paradoxes. This organizing framework shows how combining the cores can help sharing-economy initiatives to navigate certain tensions, but can also lead to new ones. We highlight the paradoxical nature of the sharing economy and make a case for balanced initiatives that combine the promises of each core while mitigating contradictions. We conclude by introducing the nine articles of the special issue, connecting their contributions to our organizing framework.
Uncovering the structure of socioeconomic systems and timely estimation of socioeconomic status are significant for economic development. The understanding of socioeconomic processes provides ...foundations to quantify global economic development, to map regional industrial structure, and to infer individual socioeconomic status. In this review, we will make a brief manifesto about a new interdisciplinary research field named Computational Socioeconomics, followed by detailed introduction about data resources, computational tools, data-driven methods, theoretical models and novel applications at multiple resolutions, including the quantification of global economic inequality and complexity, the map of regional industrial structure and urban perception, the estimation of individual socioeconomic status and demographic, and the real-time monitoring of emergent events. This review, together with pioneering works we have highlighted, will draw increasing interdisciplinary attentions and induce a methodological shift in future socioeconomic studies.
Abstract
The core argument of this paper is that thinking of modern economies, like that of the United States, the UK, Germany, and Japan, as “market” economies—a view presented in most of the ...standard economic texts that provide populations with their economic education—greatly oversimplifies the complex and varied ways that these economies actually use to organize and govern provision of the great variety of goods and services that serve their multiple needs and wants. These economies certainly do make extensive use of for-profit firms selling their wares on markets. However, even in sectors where market mechanisms are central, there almost always are important non-market mechanisms involved as well. And for many of the most important goods and services these economies provide and use, non-market institutions are central and market mechanisms secondary. It is important to recognize the oversimplification. It makes dealing with the problems in sectors whose performance is widely judged to be unsatisfactory much more difficult to resolve adequately.
Free enterprise is off the leash and chasing new opportunities for profit making across the globe. After a turbulent century of unprecedented social and technological change, Capitalism has emerged ...as the dominant ideology and model for economic growth in the richest, most developed countries. But only thirty years ago economic growth was faltering, inflation rising and the Left were arguing for greater state intervention in industry. How did this remarkable transformation happen? And what price have we paid in the process? This accessible and persuasive book challenges the notion of our capitalist destiny. It provides a clear and concise history of the problems facing the economies of Europe, Japan and the US during the latter half of the twentieth century and questions whether capitalism has really brought the levels of economic growth and prosperity that were hoped for. Andrew Glyn then looks at the impact the rapidly developing economies of China and the South are likely to have on the older economies of the North. As the race is on to maintain growth and protect competitive advantage, Glyn asks: is the 'race-to-the bottom' inevitable as the anti-globalisers predict, with welfare states being dismantled to meet competitive demands? Or is there an alternative model which sees a strong commitment to welfare provision as essential to economic growth? Can we afford not to tackle inequality at home as well as abroad? Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/economicsfinance/9780199226795/toc.html
Variegated capitalism Peck, Jamie; Theodore, Nik
Progress in human geography,
12/2007, Volume:
31, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The article critically engages with the `varieties of capitalism' school, which since its origins in the early 1990s has been consolidated into one of the most influential strands in comparative and ...heterodox political economy. While the `varieties' approach can be credited with the development of several of the most evocative stylized facts in heterodox political economy, having served as a potent foil against the orthodox globalization thesis, its alternative vision of a bipolar global economy comprising two competing capitalisms is found to be wanting. The approach is limited by its methodological nationalism, a tendency towards static analysis and latent institutional functionalism, and by an inability to adequately balance national specificity and path-dependency on the one hand with common underlying tendencies in capitalist restructuring on the other. Nevertheless, the varieties approach has spawned an influential account of the spatiality of advanced capitalism from which economic geography can certainly learn, and to which it has much to contribute.
This paper advances ideas about relational geographies to explore ‘everyday austerity’. Whilst geographers have analysed the causes and aftermath of the recent financial crisis, the focus largely ...remains on problems within economic systems and urban governance, rather than austerity as lived experience. I outline how focusing on everyday relationships and relational spaces – family, friendship and intimate relations – provides exciting opportunities for thinking geographically about everyday life in austerity. Using examples of care and support and mundane mobilities, I demonstrate how a relational approach extends current understandings of how austerity cuts through, across and between spaces.
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