Opportunities of a Shared Economy in Hungary Based on Primary Research
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Civic Review, Vol. 16, Special Issue, 2020, 385–398, DOI: 10.24307/psz.2020.1224 Mónika Pónusz, Patricia Kolonics Opportunities of a Shared Economy in Hungary Based on Primary Research Summary study does not aim to decide which of the The term ‘sharing economy’ means an camps on the two sides of the argument is economy based on sharing, a community right; instead, it provides an overview of economy. The model features elements the characteristics of the sharing economy such as paying attention to the environ- and its main areas thus far. It argues for the ment, the importance of curbing consump- model relying mostly on international prac- tion, and rationalising consumption habits. tice and experience. One of the objectives Its significance could best be highlighted of our research is to explore the difficulties, through recycling waste, the purpose of obstacles and anomalies relating to the reg- which is to reduce the amount of waste gen- ulation of the area, particularly to tax laws. erated from the goods we use, and also to Furthermore, we strive to identify the cir- reduce the need for new resources by recy- cumstances that have resulted in flourish- cling such waste back into the system. For ing sharing economies in some countries, those advocating the sharing economy it is so that we can put forward proposals to fos- a potential way to rein in the global over- ter such development in Hungary, making consumption that is based on individual use of the country’s capabilities. The study consumption, while for those opposing the summarises the results of our secondary re- idea it signifies competition and a threat to search, our primary research conducted in their livelihood, not to mention the possi- Hungary in 2019, an online survey and in- bility/suspicion of tax optimisation, or in depth interviews. The questions of the on- a worse-case scenario tax avoidance. This line survey were aimed at investigating the Mónika Pónusz PhD, Associate Professor, Deputy Head of Institute of Econo- mics and Management, Faculty of Law, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary ([email protected]), Patricia Kolonics, Károli Gás- pár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary, Institute for Church and Society, Department of Care for Creation, economist ([email protected]). 385 PSZ 2020. angol.szam_beliv_v11_kisebb_2H.indd 385 2021. 02. 11. 9:01 Academic Workshop awareness and use of the sharing economy, al. (2020) examined the internal features and people’s openness to such initiatives. of the different sharing platforms, pointing out the “self-contradiction”, the internal Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) codes: tension in the sharing economy. M14, D16, Q01 Botsman and Rogers (2011) offered the Keywords: sharing economy, community following definition of the sharing econo- economy, collaborative economy, collabo- my: “An economic system based on sharing rative consumption underused assets or services, for free or for a fee, directly from individuals”. It relies on Introduction markets between individuals, which depend to a great extent on trust between strangers, A sharing economy can be a tool in the which can be regarded as ‘social glue’. In fight to protect human living space by curb- this system the individuals, as service pro- ing consumption and rationalising con- viders, can be regarded as micro-business- sumption habits. es (Gelei et al., 2001; Szigeti et al., 2014). We aim to provide an overview of the Lisa Gansky (2010) defines “The Mesh” sharing economy, outlining briefly how it as “sharing enabled by the network”, and developed and presenting its forms in Hun- she attributes four core characteristics to gary and abroad. We intend to introduce a “Mesh Business” as she puts it. The core this economic model to as many people as offering is something that can be shared. possible, to encourage thinking and reflec- Products and services can easily be shared tion on what opportunities and tools they within a community. The second charac- can envisage in their own environment. teristic is that it uses advanced digital net- Furthermore, we would like to draw atten- works to track goods and aggregate usage, tion to the significance of protecting the customer, and product information. The environment (Mesterházi et al., 2020; Oláh third characteristics of the “Mesh” is that et al., 2019), and living in an environmen- the focus is on shareable physical goods, tally conscious manner (Fehér et al., 2015). which makes local delivery of services and products valuable and relevant. Offers, REVIEW OF DEFINITIONS news, and recommendations are transmit- AND SUBJECT MATTER ted largely through word of mouth, aug- mented by social network services – this is Experts studying the model have come up the fourth characteristic. According to Alex with different definitions of the community Stephany (2015), there are four features to economy. describe the sharing economy: economic In his analysis, Szuchy (2020) gives a value (created by exchanging assets either comprehensive overview of the connec- using money or in a bartering transaction), tions between the energy sector and the “underutilised assets”, online availability sharing economy, pointing out that “we are (via the internet), and the reduced need faced with new and highly complex legisla- for ownership. tive situations that cannot be regulated, or In his book published in 2016, Arun not adequately, within the current legisla- Sundararajan offers a synthesis of defini- tive framework”. In their study, Lazányi et tions by contemporary authors, pointing 386 PSZ 2020. angol.szam_beliv_v11_kisebb_2H.indd 386 2021. 02. 11. 9:01 Academic Workshop out five characteristics of crowd-based capi- the distribution organisations they are con- talism, the term he uses to describe the nected to (Simay and Gáti, 2018). sharing economy. He believes the system is Overall, the sharing economy can be largely market-based: the sharing economy regarded as one of the megatrends of the creates markets that enable the exchange 21st century, leading potentially to a so- of goods and the emergence of new ser- cially more focused and more responsible vices, resulting in potentially higher levels economy (Tóth et al., 2016). of economic activity. In addition to the de- velopment of services, it could also have an Research methodology impact on product innovation, such as func- tional foods (Fehér et al., 2012). The sec- When preparing the study, we chose to mix ond characteristic is high-impact capital, as our methods. The literature review is based the sharing economy opens new opportuni- mostly on sources available online. Given ties for everything, from assets and skills to its nature, printed literature was used to a time and money, to be used at levels closer lesser extent. We also used the policy posi- to their full capacity. The third feature is a tion of the European Union on the shar- shift to crowd-based networks rather than ing economy, the directives regulating it, as centralised institutions. The supply of capi- well as the study by PricewatershouseCoop- tal and labour comes from decentralised ers Hungary on the sharing economy. crowds of individuals rather than corporate As part of the primary research, we con- or state aggregates. Future exchange may be ducted in-depth interviews and an online mediated by distributed crowd-based mar- survey to learn more about the awareness ketplaces rather than by third parties. Blur- of the community economy, and about the ring lines between the personal and the pro- openness towards or the rejection of using fessional is the fourth feature. The supply sharing-based platforms. The data was col- of labour and services often commercialises lected in April 2019. The sample based on and scales certain activities like giving some- 150 evaluable responses is not representa- one a ride or lending someone money, activ- tive, it was based on convenience sampling ities which used to be considered personal. and on the snowball sampling method Blurring lines between fully employed and (Babbie, 1996, p. 704). This analysis uses de- casual labour, between independent and scriptive statistics, we intend to use analyses dependent employment, between work and going further than this in future research. leisure is the fifth characteristic (Sundarara- For a more complete picture, we also con- jan, 2016, p. 30). ducted in-depth interviews with experts. In the globalising economy, new dimen- sions of business activities are spurred by International and Hungarian the internet every day. The different mar- examples ket players have to respond to consumer needs in a technology-based, highly inno- We present specific international examples vative environment, where consumer life is and provide information on Hungarian split between offline and online space, in- examples. The term “sharing economy” is cluding social media platforms where users associated mostly with Airbnb, Uber and continuously interact with one another and Couchsurfing, but it is not just these three 387 PSZ 2020. angol.szam_beliv_v11_kisebb_2H.indd 387 2021. 02. 11. 9:01 Academic Workshop that fall under the umbrella of sharing. Short-term car-sharing: These are indeed the most obvious exam- The taxi reinvented. Using – sharing ples of the sharing economy, but now we – their own cars, drivers offer a passenger want to present activities based on commu- service. The person requests a lift in the nity use together with the sharing economy. application, essentially hailing a taxi, and In the 2015 study by PricewaterhouseCoop- this need is met by a nearby driver; pay- ers Hungary on the sharing economy, seven ment also takes place through the app, as key sectors were identified where the pres- follows: ence of sharing-based services is significant a) Uber: on-demand method, providing both in Hungary and abroad, or they have rides customer to customer, i.e. c2c rides, the potential to grow (Damjanovics et al., or peer to peer, i.e.