New economic models: Application to Uber and Airbnb

Julien Sornette

Master's thesis

Abstract:

This thesis will deal with Uber, Airbnb, and all other major digital players of the sharing economy. Indeed, this economy has been increasingly gaining in importance for a few years. This is leading to a major shift in our current economic models, because older economic actors are now forced to change their strategy in order to compete with these new actors. This topic is really interesting given that, even if Uber and Airbnb are currently the most famous actors of the sharing economy, it is not only affecting the transportation and hotel industries : more and more traditional sectors of the economy are now faced with the competition of new companies, based on the same model as Uber and Airbnb. This is for example the case in financial or in agricultural sectors.The aim of this thesis will be first to understand how these new companies succeeded to take such an important place in our economies in such a short time. But it will also be to analyze the many consequences of the sharing economy : it is interesting to analyze the reaction of older actors, such as traditional hotel industry, the sustainability of this model, the consequences regarding employment, and the necessary regulation of these new economic models.

Keywords

Sharing Economy, Collaborative Economy, Uber, Airbnb, BlaBlaCar

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 31. 3. 2016

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Petr Procházka, MSc Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Economics and Management

Master programme / field:
Economics and Management / Economics and Management