Digital platforms and the sharing economy contribute to a more efficient allocation of resources by releasing underutilized assets and reducing transaction costs; this opens up additional opportunities for socio-economic development. However, the rapid introduction of digital platforms and changing consumption patterns necessitate the adjustment and transformation of the current institutional environment. The aim of our study is to model the impact of the formal and informal institutional environment on the platform economy and the sharing economy in various countries. We apply theoretical analysis to show possible impact of formal and informal institutions on the development of digital platforms and the sharing economy; on this basis, four relevant hypotheses are formulated. In the study, we use data from the Digital Platform Economy Index 2020, Smart City Index 2021, WJP Rule of Law Index 2020, Social Capital Index 2020, Barometr Trust Index 2021 for 26 countries. With the help of a correlation and regression analysis, we construct linear models demonstrating the impact of the formal institutional environment on the development of the platform economy, as well as the influence of informal institutions on the services of the sharing economy. We prove that a low level of corruption and the transparency of public administration are major factors in the formal environment that affect this type of activity. The informal environment is characterized by the level of trust and social contacts in the country, expressed through social capital. The novelty of our findings consists in determining the nature of influence of the formal and informal institutional environment on the development of the sharing economy. The significance of the results lies in the possibility of using the identified patterns for the development of digital platforms and the sharing economy
Keywords
institutional environment, formal institutions, platform economy, sharing economy, informal institutions, sharing