Sharing Economy And Its Popularity In Hungary And Romania

The purpose of this study aims at introducing the sharing economy, one of the most popular economic mechanisms at present, with special regard to its varieties and definitions. The explosion of the sharing economy into the tertiary sector has changed the balance of powers and paved the way for increasing markets based on a new footing. The emergence of trading platforms has created a wide variety of virtual marketplaces, where consumers and suppliers contact each other directly according to their interests, and may even form groups. The review of the relevant literature can be considered rather inclusive regarding the terms and definitions; therefore, the authors find the separation of suppliers essential, according to whether they are private individuals or entrepreneurs. The literature distinguishes three large groups of the sharing economy: product-service systems, redistribution markets and collaborative lifestyle markets, followed by further sub-categories. This paper focuses on the economic markets of the Hungarian and Romanian sharing economy from supply and demand-side aspects to obtain a clear picture of the sharing economy’s growing range and forms. The paper includes both primary and secondary research, literary sources and the open-access database of the European Commission (2018): Flash Eurobarometer 467 (The Use of the Collaborative Economy), which is analyzed by using the SPSS 24 software. Sharing economies have been studied from both consumer and service provider perspectives. The survey on the percentage of consumers and suppliers, the advantages and disadvantages, the reasons for not using services offered as such, and the motives behind the participation of suppliers on sharing economy platforms was carried out in Hungary and Romania and the EU-28 member states. As regards to the advantages, consumers praise easy access to a given service, and then the sequence of evaluated advantages shows a difference between Romanian and Hungarian users. The estimation of sharing economy services shows a more positive picture among Hungarian residents, whereas Romanian users and service providers as a whole correspond to the EU 28 average. Experience has shown that just like in the 28 members of the EU, the most popular sharing economy platforms are accommodation and ridesharing services in Romania and Hungary. To the best of our knowledge, the analysis of this topic has not been carried out.