The Rise and Maturation of the Platform Economy

                         The Rise and Maturation of the Platform Economy:

              Competition and Work in the Era of Intelligent Tools and Systems

           Online Digital Platforms are very much at the center of this Era of Intelligent Tools and Systems.Indeed, platforms are to the Digital Era what factories were to the Industrial Era.BRIE research traces the development of the platform as a central feature of the contemporary economy and considers the consequences.


I. Overview Essays:

Platforms are to the Digital Era what factories were to the Industrial Era.The place and role of dominant mega-platforms is the central issue.

  1. Kenney, M. and J. Zysman. 2016. The Rise of the Platform Economy. Issues in Science and Technology 32 (3): 61-69.
  2. Zysman, J. and M. Kenney. 2017. Intelligent Tools and Digital Platforms: Implications for Work and Employment. Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy (6): 329-334.Quote of the month selected by Intereconomics. (W)e must proceed in a way that allows citizens, in their multiple roles as workers and consumers, to participate in shaping the future, not just allowing it to happen to them. It is not a matter of robots coming, but rather one of how to direct the evolution of platforms and the development and deployment of intelligent tools and systems。
  3. Zysman, J. and M. Kenney. 2018. The next phase in the digital revolution: Abundant computing, platforms, growth, and employment. Communications of the Association of Computing Machinery 61(2): 54-63. The related video has been published on the CACM website. //. The article and video are at http://bit.ly/2DBUNKv /https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/2/224635-the-next-phase-in-the-digit.... //. The video alone is at http://bit.ly/2F7ROa3 or at https://vimeo.com/249810896
  4. Kenney, M., Rouvinen, R., Seppälä, T., and Zysman, J. 2019. Platforms and industrial change. Industry and Innovation 26(8), 871-879.
  5. Kenney, M., Bearson, D. and Zysman, J. 2020. The Platform Economy Matures: Maturation and Pervasive Power of Platforms submitted to Socio-Economic Review First round Revise and resubmit.

 II. Platforms and Labor:

There are basic changes in work organization – tasks, jobs, labor market arrangement – and the required skills and capabilities. These essays create a framework for examining labor in a platform era.Importantly, this emphasizes that the focus on gig work in specific platforms such as Uber, while useful and important, deflect us from the profound reorganizations that are underway.

 1. Kenney, M., Rouvinen, P. and Zysman, J. 2019. Employment, work, and value creation in the era of digital platforms.In Digital Work and the Platform Economy: Understanding Tasks, Skills and Capabilities in the New Era Eds. Poutanen, S., Kovalainen, A. and Rouvinen, P. Routledge.

2. Bearson, D., Kenney, M., and Zysman, J. 2020. Measuring the impacts of labor in the platform economy: New work created, old work reorganized, and value creation reconfigured. Industrial and Corporate Change 2nd Revision and Resubmission.

3. Massini, S., Piscetello, L, Ciarli, T. and Kenney, M. 2021. Innovation and skills in the digital economy. Research Policy

III. Platforms, Marketplaces, Competition, and Social Dynamics

Platforms, we argue are altering market competition in specific sectors, the balance between different forms of entrepreneurship, the logic of finance, the very location of economic activity, and of course, social norms.

A. Implications for Agriculture

B. Implications for Entrepreneurship

C. Platforms and Consequences for Economic Space

D. Issues regarding Platforms, Algorithms, and Ethnicity

E. Venture investment in the age of platforms

IV.Projects in Component with Platform Component in progress:

  • Fintech

    • A growing collection of digital innovations is currently underway with the goal of enhancing payments, both domestic and international, and to create an ecosystem of FinTech platforms to provide related financial services.Attention has focused on established firms such as Paypal and Venmo, on Facebook’s Libra, payment plays from Apple and Google, and certainly the Crypto stories. That said, the most significant potential development affecting industry structure and competition will be Central bank decisions about digital currencies.An explicit part of the Central bank discussions is how a Central Bank Digital Currency will affect market structure and competition. A significant project on this arranged with BRIE, Berkeley Economics, CITRIS, and Haas is underway.
  • Platforms and Competition

    • A working paper on approaches to platform regulation to assure competitive markets while advancing consumer interests is being developed.In addition to the core Platform Team at BRIE, the effort currently involves Professor John Cioffi at Riverside and Helena Malikova, DG Competition at the European Commission.
  • Platforms and health

    • Kenney, M. and Zysman, J. 2020. Covid-19 and the increasing centrality and power of platforms in China, the USA, and beyond. Management Organization Review (forthcoming).
    • The Covid 19 Pandemic has forced a rapid shift of health to telehealth platforms.The question becomes how this will reshape medical delivery after the pandemic.A case study of a specific site in the PACE (Program of all-inclusive Health Care for the Elderly) is opening out to the broader discussion of platforms and work.
  • AI Governance

    • AI and data are core elements of the power of platforms. How these are to be governed becomes a central issue.Working with the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels (CEPS), the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and the Institute on the Finnish Economy (ETLA) BRIE is proposing an innovative approach to the governance of AI.