Abstract
For Teigland, Holmberg and Felländer, the sharing economy offers people new opportunities for value creation in the European Union. With the help of digital platforms, participants in the sharing economy may cut out traditional intermediaries resulting in a cheaper exchange of goods and services. However, a vacuum of responsibility arises in the wake of digitalization, eroding provisions of labor and consumer law. Creating trust in the digital environment is a huge challenge for the sharing economy. The Union can engage more intensively in the digitalization of European societies by promoting economic growth and enhancing the capacity for innovation. The authors consider it essential to develop a ‘digital presence’ to prevent the European perspective on democracy and freedom of expression losing out to global actors.
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- 1.
The number of blockchain initiatives by major institutions has increased from 22 in the third quarter of 2015 to 34 in the fourth quarter of 2015 to 25 in the first quarter of 2016. Today there are more than 80 financial and other institutions in the R3CEV consortium to develop the Corda blockchain for the financial market and more than 150 organizations supporting the development of Hyperledger.
- 2.
See more information about the Europe 2020 strategy on the European Commission’s website: https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/economic-and-fiscal-policy-coordination/eu-economic-governance-monitoring-prevention-correction/european-semester/framework/europe-2020-strategy_en
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Teigland, R., Holmberg, H., Felländer, A. (2019). The Importance of Trust in a Digital Europe: Reflections on the Sharing Economy and Blockchains. In: Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, A., Bremberg, N., Michalski, A., Oxelheim, L. (eds) Trust in the European Union in Challenging Times. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73857-4_9
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