Core Elements Affecting Sharing Evidence from the European Union

Abstract

Sharing activities are receiving greater attention due to increasing popularity in recent years. This article focuses on how the use of digital sharing platforms by customers to share products and services helps to increase the saving of natural resources and support sustainable development. In the paper, the authors investigated the main elements affecting ICT based sharing. (1) Literature review: The theoretical part starts with the revision of definitions of sharing activities; descriptions of the links between sharing and sustainable development, policy recommendations, and relevant regulation in the field. Further on, the study emphasises key elements, including ICT ones, that are important for sharing. Finally, the authors investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic affected sharing activities in previously published studies. (2) Methods: During empirical research, the authors revised a list of 33 variables, among which are 16 indicators describing network infrastructure, internet literacy and online shopping. The study uses data for each of the 27 EU countries from 2011 to 2020. The authors investigated correlations between macroeconomics and other variables to determine key variables for the regression model. (3) Results: The authors constructed a dynamic regression model that can be applied to predict the number of participants visiting digital sharing platforms in the European Union (EU). (4) Conclusions: The study shows that, when seeking to forecast the number of visits to digital sharing platforms, it is necessary to use values of main macroeconomic and ICT variables. Among these variables, ICT based indicators are highly dominating.