New companies that exist on new technology platforms such as Uber and Airbnb have no precedent in the business sector regarding regulation, raising complicated questions about how they should be regulated and by whom.
Sarah Light, a Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics co-wrote a paper titled “Regulating Business Innovation as Policy Disruption: From Model T to Airbnb,” which outlines a framework for regulators to apply to this new business model.
Light, who recently conducted a seminar on Capitol Hill about the paper for the Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative, discussed the current state of regulation of companies based in digital platforms, how regulators can proceed, and what new challenges the industry will face to streamline these businesses and their oversight.
“This raises a whole host of questions, not just for the entrepreneurs who are building these new forms of business based on new technologies, but also for regulators in terms of who should respond and how they should respond,” says Light. “Should the regulation be at the local level, at the national level? There’s a whole host of questions that all of this innovation is raising.”
Read more at Knowledge@Wharton.
