The Importance of Platforms in Sharing

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Sally Kohn: Is true sharing possible? We needn't fetishize markets and these complicated rental agreements. She says there's a fourth possibility here or a third possibility of literally sharing as long as there's no rental market. Kohn: Software can handle this sharing problem in a way that opens a whole new world of actual sharing.

Economist and author Michael Munger of Duke University talks about his book, Tomorrow 3.0, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Munger analyzes the rise of companies like Uber and AirBnB as an example of how technology lowers transactions costs. Users and providers can find each other more easily through their smartphones, increasing opportunity. Munger expects these costs to fall elsewhere and predicts an expansion of the sharing economy to a wide array of items in our daily lives.