Huang Yiping: The innovation, governance and prosperity of the platform economy

Title: On July 31, 2022, the fourth issue of the Chengze Forum of Peking University National Development Council was held simultaneously in Chengze Garden and online. This forum is hosted by the "Platform Economy Innovation and Governance" research group of the Peking University National Development Institute and co -organized by the National Development Institute's Think Tank and the National Development Institute Communication Center. At the same time, the new book "Platform Economy: Innovation, Governance and Prosperity" was collected by the research results of the research group. This article is organized according to the speech of the Deputy Dean of Peking University National Development Institute and the director of the Digital Finance Research Center, Professor Huang Yiping.

Today I borrowed the opportunity to publish a new book, hoping to conduct further discussions with you on the platform's economic issues. In fact, even for many members in our research group, the platform economy is a new issue.

After the founding group was established in June 2021, it took more than a year to read materials, interview investigations and internal discussions. Now I have some relatively in -depth understanding and comparative views on related issues. Here, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the guidance and help provided by many colleagues in the past year.

Below I want to discuss from the following five points of the main point of view of the book "Platform Economy: Innovation, Governance and Prosperity":

1. The economy of the Chinese platform is at the forefront of the world

From a global perspective, the economic development of China's platform is in a relatively leading position. It is currently ranked second in the world. Measurement indicators include the number, market value, and transaction scale of platform companies. Although the development speed of the past two years has slowed down, in general, China's platform economic development has achieved extraordinary achievements. As a developing country, it is very amazing to keep up with the fourth industrial revolution and walk at the forefront of economic and technological innovation.

There may be five aspects of factors that have contributed to the economic development of my country's platform:

First, the results of market -oriented reform. All head platform companies are private enterprises, which is an important result of China's market -oriented reform. Americans often say "American Dream". In my opinion, this is a very typical "Chinese dream". Some young people's ideas can not only land on the ground, but also make domestic and even global head companies in a short period of time.

Second, China has good digital technology infrastructure. The penetration rate of my country's smartphones and the Internet is among the top in developing countries. This is to thank the government for organizing a large number of digital technology infrastructure investment in the past. Similarly, many state -owned enterprises have also made important contributions.

Third, China has a large -scale natural advantage. A major feature of the platform economy is the economy economy. If the population and market size is small, the difficulty of the platform economy innovation will increase significantly. There are 1.4 billion people in my country, and everyone is using smartphones and the Internet. The development of the platform economy has a very good technical foundation.

Fourth, my country has insufficient personal rights protection. Some platforms do have some unsatisfactory or even illegal practices. This is a problem. However, the other side of the coin is that various innovative activities have become very active, and many new businesses, new processes and new products related to big data analysis are continuously born.

Fifth, China's platform economy and the world market are separated. China's platform economy has not really integrated into the market of the global platform economy. However, in the short term, this may provide favorable conditions for the development and growth of some domestic platforms.

On the one hand, the above five factors explain the reasons for the success of the past, and on the other hand, some conditions and practices in the economic development of the platform may not continue for a long time. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen supervision of platform companies. In the past, some brutal growth practices needed correction.

Second, the contribution of the platform economy

There are many characteristics of the platform economy, such as long -tail effects, scale effects, scope economy, network benefits, big data analysis, algorithms, etc. Based on these characteristics, we can summarize its contribution and influence. Generally speaking, there are six aspects: expanding scale, improving efficiency, improving user experience, reducing costs, controlling risks, and reducing contact with contact. It is undeniable that the role of these six aspects has indeed changed our economic life a lot.

For example, the platform economy has greatly improved the inclusiveness of many economic activities, and the people pay a very low cost to enjoy various online services. Innovation and entrepreneurship and even employment have become more inclusive, and the threshold for entry is significantly reduced.

Digital finance is a very good example. No matter where China is, as long as there are smartphones and network signals, everyone can enjoy almost the same financial services. This is true inclusive finance, which is difficult to imagine in the past.

However, in many cases, it is difficult for us to use economic indicators to accurately capture and portray the economic contribution of the platform economy. In his report, Wu Xiaoying and Yu Changhua first defined a relatively broad concept of digital economy, and then analyzed the contribution of the digital economy to China's economic growth and productivity growth. Their research found that between 2012-2018, their digital economy contributed 75%to China's GDP growth. Due to some difficulties in data, they did not use the concept of "platform economy" in research. However, the development of the platform economy is essential for the long -term sustainability of economic growth.

3. Challenge of the platform economy

The platform economy brings benefits such as supporting economic growth, improving efficiency, controlling risks, and improving inclusiveness. During the epidemic, the platform's economy has no contact trading characteristics, which has also continued some economic activities. However, there are two sides of everything, and the development of the platform economy will inevitably bring some new challenges. It is worthy of attention: the characteristics of the scale economy on the platform may cause winners to eat, a unique family, and even implement anti -competitive behavior.

The platform economy provides employment opportunities for low thresholds and high flexibility, but at the same time, complaints with lack of social security and poor working conditions of outsourcing and courier are also common.

The algorithm can help the platform to do a lot of things. There is a new business model "Big Science and Technology Credit" in the digital finance field, which refers to the risk assessment of the financial institutions based on the digital footprint left by the user on the platform and based on the digital footprint left on the platform. Loans. Compared to the past financial institutions relying on mortgages to make loans, Dawang Credit is undoubtedly a revolutionary change. However, algorithms may also cause problems, including algorithm discrimination, algorithm black box, etc.

There are many other challenges. If these problems cannot be corrected or eliminated in time, it will inevitably affect the development of the platform economy and even cause serious economic and social consequences. Therefore, the research team believes that government departments are necessary to strengthen the supervision and specifications of the platform economy. Only in this way can development last long.

Fourth, the supervision and norms of the platform economy

The "strong supervision" of the platform economy in early 2021 has achieved some expected purposes. However, there are many places worth reflecting in the implementation of the policy.

In the past year, the development of the platform economy has slowed significantly. Although the ranking of the Chinese platform economy is still high, the increase in increased significantly, this phenomenon is worrying. If this trend continues, the advantages of my country's platform economy will soon be lost and will be lost by India, the United Kingdom, etc. Guohong overtake.

The policy of governance policies is to hope that the platform's economy is equal and developed, and "regulates in development and develops in norms." The research team believes that adhering to this principle from beginning to end is essential for formulating and implementing governance policies. A total of ten policy suggestions were proposed. The core of these suggestions is to improve the coordination of regulatory policies as much as possible, reduce "sports supervision" and "supervision competition", and make supervision a daily behavior, the purpose is to make the platform's economic development more standardized.

From a large framework, you can consider two aspects of ideas. First, many policies and laws have been formulated in recent years, but sometimes the lack of coordination between various policies. Whether it can be considered by the National People's Congress to promote the formulation of a digital economy law can not only improve the connection between different policies and regulations, but also the role of the Basic Law of the Digital Economic Governance in the future.

The second is to strengthen policy coordination, change the situation of "Doron to govern water" in the past, and compete with each other, and balance the relationship between long -term and short -term and the relationship between systems and parts. In late July 2022, the State Council established an inter -Ministry of the Ministry of Economic Affairs Joint Conference mechanism. The current plan is planned once a year. This is a very good mechanism. In the long run, it may be possible to discuss the possibility and necessity of the establishment of high -standard and comprehensive platform economic governance agencies.

In short, governance policies must be balanced between development and norms, and should not be abolished.

5. Problems worth deepening research

The platform economy is a new economic phenomenon, and research on the platform economy has just begun. From the perspective of academic research or from the perspective of policy formulation, many problems are worthy of in -depth thinking and research.

For example, the issue of much attention in the platform economy. Based on the characteristics of network effects and scale economy, the platform is easy to grow, but once it is bigger, there is suspected monopoly. However, do we continue to use the traditional standards such as the steel and oil industries such as the steel and oil industry? The platform economy is not successful. If it is bigger, it will be split, then you will not be able to engage in the platform economy. Teacher Wang Hao of the research team proposed that the characteristics of the scope economy can coexist the full competition and the economy. There is a concept of "competitive market" in economics discussions, that is, to determine whether there is a monopoly, not looking at the market share of the enterprise, but to see if other potential competitors can enter the market. If potential competitors are easy to enter the market, it is difficult for platform companies to implement monopoly behaviors even with relatively large market share.

Similarly, for business behaviors such as "two selections", in -depth economic analysis is needed to determine whether there are legitimate reasons behind it, and should not simply conclude that the "one -size -fits -all" conclusion should be simply underground.

For another example, the central government proposes that data must become a new production factors, but for data, how should we configure, use, trade, and pricing? These questions have no clear answers. There are many big data trading centers or exchanges across the country, but the business has not been done. This phenomenon is worthy of our thoughts. For a new type of production factors such as big data, I think it is not suitable to manage methods such as management of traditional production factors such as labor, capital and land. The research team is also exploring some new ideas in terms of confirmation, transactions and pricing.

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