Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

1-2020

Abstract

While the sharing economy brings significant social benefits in China, it comes with regulatory challenges that are novel and unpredictable. How should regulators handle these challenges? This paper offers fresh insights into the regulatory approach to the ride-hailing industry, the most comprehensively regulated sharing industry in China. A historical review identifies three regulatory approaches deployed to date: self-regulation, market-based regulation and government regulation. Self-regulation relies on the platforms with incentive to provide better service for greater profit, and to deal with sharing-specific challenges. Market-based regulation invites rivals to keep a watchful eye on other players, in order to enhance their market position by outperforming the competition. Both approaches are capable of delivering quick, and often innovative, responses to new challenges. Government regulation, on the other hand, came late and plays a neutral role. The rules there are mostly of the “old wine in a new bottle” kind; in other words, applying existing (old) rules to the new sharing economy. Those rules could contribute to a level playing field for traditional and sharing-market players if managed properly. This article argues that government regulations are inadequate for solving sharing-specific challenges such as the legal status of the participants, the challenges of uncertain externalities, and new forms of competition. Instead, regulators should in the future give more affirmative value to self-regulation and market-based regulation. These complementary approaches are capable of yielding innovative and sharing-specific regulatory responses, from which the government regulators can glean and evaluate before codifying them.

Keywords

Sharing economy, China, regulation, ride-hailing industry, taxis, transportation

Discipline

Asian Studies | Transportation Law

Research Areas

Public International Law, Regional and Trade Law

Publication

Journal of Law, Technology and Policy

Volume

2020

Issue

1

First Page

85

Last Page

108

ISSN

1530-1931

Publisher

University of Illinois, College of Law

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://illinoisjltp.com/file/25/Jiang%20%20Wang.pdf

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