Regulation and Fairness in the Sharing Economy

Sharing economy platforms frame a dichotomy between innovation and regulation. Current discussions surrounding the merits and desirability of regulatory oversight, among policy makers, academics, and platform advocates, are nevertheless conducted in a top-down fashion on both sides. What is often left out is the user perspective. We suggest that one of the most fun-damental shapers of a users perspective on regulation is their own experiences of the sharing economy. A key factor in user experience is perceived fairness. In this contribution, we inves-tigate how the perceived fairness of a platform can impact regulatory desirability among users, based on a survey in 12 European countries. We find that procedural fairness has a positive effect on the desire for regulation, while interactional fairness has a negative one.