Product (mathematics)

Ecology

Biology

Economic system

Deregulation

Digital economy

Embeddedness

Economics

Market economy

Anthropology

Capitalism

Neoclassical economics

Competition (biology)

Mathematics

Politics

Political science

Sociology

Geometry

Economy

Sharing economy

Cambridge Journal of Economics

The terms ‘platform economy’ or ‘sharing economy’ have become widespread with the development of digital platforms like Uber. This economy is transforming capitalism and raising important questions about its nature. Is it a new process of embeddedness or is it the next step for deregulation following the crisis of the financialised regime of accumulation (RA)? Is it a possible new Growth Regime? Using the approach of the French Régulation school of thought, we describe the nature and transformations of the form of competition inherent in platforms. Although this may favour some forms of re-embeddedness, we show that it will accelerate some of the trends and characteristics of the institutional forms of the financialised RA and that it is an endogenous product of its crisis. This raises further questions and uncertainties related to the ability of platforms to generate stable long run growth due to the dysfunctionality of the mode of régulation and the conflicts it could generate.

Platform economy as a new form of capitalism: a Régulationist research programme