The sharing economy

In the last few years, a new technological, economic, social and cultural phenomenon is emerging: the so-called sharing economy. The upheaval introduced by the Web 2.0 allowed the birth of multi-sided platforms which are able to coordinate users without the need of intermediaries. Beyond the positive analysis of the paradigm, on which there is anyway little academic consensus, the economic implications are profound and antithetical: on one hand, it is clear that there has been an increment of the efficiency of the markets disrupted by the Sharing Economy, but on the other it is evident as well how much room this new paradigm made for a possible exploitation of labor, tax evasion and monopolistic behavior by these peer-to-peer platforms. This work aims to paint the big picture of a phenomenon which is as much new as controversial.