Guzmán Ourens*, Thuc Huan Ha**

Séminaires internes
phd seminar

Guzmán Ourens*, Thuc Huan Ha**

Université catholique de Louvain
Uneven Diversification and Divergence*
The sharing economy and the environment - Impacts of a P2P sharing platform Norms**
Lieu

VC Salle A

Centre de la Vieille-Charité - Salle A

Centre de la Vieille Charité
2 rue de la Charité
13002 Marseille

Date(s)
Mardi 18 avril 2017| 12:30 - 14:00
Contact(s)

Edward Levavasseur : edward.levavasseur[at]etu.univ-amu.fr
Lara Vivian : lara.vivian[at]univ-amu.fr

Résumé

*While specialization is regarded as efficiency-enhancing by the trade literature, evidence shows that diversification accompanies most countries’ development process. This paper introduces a simple model that accounts for this regularity while fitting the main development facts related to a divergent growth path without the need of heterogeneous consumers or products nor resorting to political or institutional explanations. When individuals exhibit love for diversity in their consumption, a region specialized in an industry in which diversification possibilities are lower than in other activities, captures a decreasing fraction of global expenditure while devoting an increasing share of its domestic expenditure in imported products. Uneven development from the supply side explains demand-side patterns that account for divergent consumption possibilities between regions. This paper reviews the existing empirical literature on the predictions of the model and provides the missing pieces of evidence, focusing in countries specialized in the production of goods based in non-extractive natural resources.

**Can a peer-to-peer sharing platform be truly green? Surprisingly very few theoretical studies have been conducted to deal with this question. This analysis examines the competition between such a sharing platform and a traditional manufacturer in a simple analytical model that allows investigating some conditions for the sharing economy to be environmentally friendly.