The essence of platform economy is a new way of resource allocation
Yi Xianrong
In the era of big data, platform economy is emerging. Because it is easy to expand, free from time and space constraints, wide coverage, huge market, low transaction costs and other characteristics, it has become the mainstream model of digital economy or a new way of resource allocation. In this regard, some people even think that the global economy is entering the development stage of platform economy capitalism. In fact, the current platform economy is not only Many well-known giant companies, such as Apple Like Tencent, they are giant platforms one by one. The platform is not only ubiquitous and has penetrated into all aspects of modern economic life, but also has become the leading force of social economy and the largest driving force of global economic development. It is comprehensively penetrating and expanding in depth and breadth, and its potential is difficult to stop, and the future development prospect of platform economy is even more difficult to measure.
Because the platform economy is not only impacting traditional industries and industries, penetrating into all aspects of economic life, but also changing and reshaping people's behavior, business models of enterprises, industry and market formats, and even changing the nature of many traditional products and services, and the way of economic resource allocation. Therefore, some people believe that there is a revolution in platform economy in the world. It is also the omnipresence of platform economy that has made giant platform companies larger and larger, posing a disguised threat to the survival space of small and medium-sized enterprises. A tide of anti-monopoly and supervision of giant network companies is rising around the world. two thousand and twenty The China Economic Work Conference in also took antitrust measures against giant Internet companies as two thousand and twenty-one The important task of economic work in. Therefore, it is very important to understand the essence and operation mechanism of platform economy.
It can be said that as a new way of resource allocation, the essence of platform economy is that it uses modern network digital technology. Its way of resource allocation is more efficient than other ways of resource allocation, and can create value for relevant parties of platform economic interests, so as to comprehensively improve economic efficiency and the overall social welfare level, and create digital dividends. Classic cases include:, two thousand and thirteen Turpan Fruit Industry Co., Ltd eight month 1-5 Daily launch ten thousand Pieces in total one thousand and eight hundred Tons of fresh grapes are promoted to coastal cities on Taobao two point two Kg, per kg twenty-three Yuan, was quickly snapped up, and the Turpan grape market was expanded through platform connection four hundred Times, creating great value for enterprises and consumers. The excess return generated through the transaction of Taobao platform is digital dividend
。 Kenyan M-Pesa In the scheme, the inclusive and popular financial services paid by third parties such as Alipay and WeChat payment in China have comprehensively improved the level of financial services in a country, creating huge digital dividends or platform dividends for middle and low level people and small and medium-sized enterprises. This is the essence of platform economy.
The question now is, why is the resource allocation mode of platform economy more efficient than that of the market and modern enterprises? Where does the huge digital dividend come from? Because the advantage of market resource allocation lies in decentralized decision-making. The actors can pursue the maximization of their interests under constraints and show through the price mechanism of the market, that is, the information of market supply and demand will be gathered on the price of goods. However, due to incomplete and asymmetric information, the choice of rational behavior is subject to information constraints and cognitive constraints, which can easily lead to moral hazard and adverse selection in the market, the prevalence of market opportunism, and the failure of the market price mechanism. In order to reduce these market risks, various types of intermediary organizations have appeared in the market, but this will increase the cost of market operation and lead to inefficiency of market operation. Modern enterprises are a way to substitute the market for resource allocation, that is, to conduct corporate governance through bureaucratic management organizations, but this will lead to principal-agent problems, and the high cost of principal-agent may also lead to inefficiency of enterprise organizations. In other words, the traditional market and enterprise resource allocation methods cannot achieve effective resource allocation due to serious information constraints and cognitive constraints.
However, in the era of big data, not only massive data is pouring out (at this time, the information on which human behavior choices are based is not only structural data, but also unstructured data, and the information obtained may be multidimensional, comprehensive, or even complete), but also human search, collection, acquisition, storage, processing, analysis The ability to use data has been comprehensively improved and the way of obtaining information has changed dramatically. In this way, human beings can use the trend of network digital technology to obtain complete and accurate information, so as to overcome the information constraints and knowledge constraints in the resource allocation process; Humans can also use network digital technology to set algorithm programs that are separate from human rational choice behavior for selection, and can use intelligent learning to deepen the understanding of the truth of events and the future, so as to overcome the cognitive constraints of human behavior choice; At the same time, the decentralization of blockchain and smart contract can reduce or even eliminate the agency cost of organization operation, and can also truly play the role of decentralized decision-making.
It is in this sense that platform economy can be defined as a new way of information screening through the collection, mining, integration, analysis, processing, processing and value conversion of big data or intelligent technology, based on the rapid development of network digital technology, with data as a factor of production, in order to overcome the information constraints in the process of rational behavior selection A new resource allocation mode and a new industrial organization structure formed by cognitive constraints are different from both the market price mechanism and the enterprise organization. Obviously, the enterprise platform at this time is the medium or place for data generation, collection, mining, integration, analysis, processing, processing and value conversion. The media function of the economic platform can be divided into two aspects. On the one hand, the platform enterprises provide information and services for those who enter the platform through big data analysis; On the other hand, the platform provides API( Application Interface ) And those created by those involved in entering the platform API To change customer behavior and supply chain interaction, so as to achieve Internet data, information and service sharing. Therefore, platform economy can also be simplified as an economic activity in which the parties entering the platform obtain the information needed for transaction decisions through big data, so as to realize the optimal allocation of resources.
Therefore, platform economy is an economy that uses data as production factors and big data analysis to create value for customers. The decision information it obtains tends to be complete, objective and future oriented. The corresponding production factors of agricultural economy and industrial economy are land, labor and capital. Resources are often allocated through the market price mechanism or enterprise organizations. The information obtained to affect decision-making is often partial and incomplete, sometimes even artificial. The core of platform economy is big data. It uses big data network technology to overcome information constraints and cognitive constraints in traditional economy, integrate and mine various resources, and comprehensively improve the efficiency of resource allocation. If the platform economy is analyzed without big data, it must be water without source and wood without roots. At present, the research on platform economy focuses on multilateral markets, competitive strategies, business models, platform pricing and network externalities. These studies basically do not touch the essential characteristics of the platform.
