Research On Relevant Market's Definition In The Field Of Sharing Economy

With the boosting of internet technology,present-day sharing economy has appeared as a new economic form.On the wings of internet technology,sharing economy are flourishing.Taking advantage over traditional industrial economy,it has both general characteristics of internet economy and its particularities,which is quite different from traditional industrial economy in aspects of business model,organization structural and pricing rule.Conflicts between developing new economy and backward rules are appearing.Starting with characteristics of sharing economy,this paper reviews the difficulties in applying relevant market's definition to sharing economy,further,finds the relevant market's definition not applicable to regulation of sharing economy in terms of traditional function positioning and technical methods,proposes a solution that the ideas and technical methods should be adjusted accordingly,and the law enforcement mechanism should be updated to remove barriers to systems and ideas for development of sharing economy.There has been no uniform definition for sharing economy's concept.Its extension has been widely extended,and it takes different forms of mediation-type sharing,transaction-type sharing and lease-type sharing in practice.Sharing economy proper carries typical characteristics of cross-group network externalities,two-sided market structure,zero marginal cost,new-mode separation of ownership and usage right,declined role of producer and consumer,transaction personalization,natural monopoly and so on.In the field of antitrust law,the sharing economy highlights structure of the new monopolistic competition market(double-decked structure�"the natural monopoly of basic platforms+the complete competition of value-added services"),and features "the more monopoly,the more competitive the sharing economic platforms is"."Who can't become bigger goes to die" has become fundamental principle,and over-sized market share has become the basic condition for the sharing economy to survive,which conflicts with the economic foundation and basic principles of current antitrust law,and can easily bring about the consequences of activating the anti-monopoly investigation without compromising the effectiveness of competition.The current anti-monopoly rules are based on the marginal cost pricing principle of neoclassical economics.The traditional economic organization forms and neoclassical price theory are basic preconditions for the analysis of competition models.Above distinctive features of sharing economy clearly breaks the basic premise and poses challenges to the existing rules.The relevant market' s definition in the antitrust law has not been spared.In the current antitrust law system:the definition of the relevant market plays a fundamental and key role,and is usually regarded as a factual premise for the application of antitrust law;law enforcement agencies define the relevant market and determine market share through different methods such as substitution analysis and SSNIP testing,then further analyze whether it has a dominant market position and abuse dominant market position,in order to determine whether the application of antitrust law is applicable to adjust it.This is considered to be the basic approach to refer to antitrust law.The modern sharing economy based on internet technology has brought varying degrees of difficulties in terms of the status of current relevant market's definition,logic and specific methods for application,including following aspects:latent pressure from change of competitive pricing power and technological innovation,breaking through the theoretical premise of definition of relevant market;changes of two-sided market and its price regulation,causing confusion to judicial determination;increased dynamic factors in agreements'structure and government regulation based on new economic model,fuzzing up the definition standard;for such reason,the traditional methods such as substitution analysis of relevant markets and qualitative SNNIP testing to define relevant market are of great limitation.Faced with the challenges brought by the development sharing economy,the existing legal system must take the initiative to make adjustments to eliminate obstacles to the system and ideas of sharing economy.The concepts and methods of relevant market's definition need to respond to the institutional characteristics and development trends of "the more monopoly,the more competitive the sharing economic platforms is","multilateral cross expansion" and "zero marginal production cost".Based on the reasons of the increasingly perfect bilateral market theory,user lock-in effect,and practical considerations of diversified business models,under the sharing economy,the antitrust law still necessary to be applied continually.However,the functional orientation,logical structure and specific methods of relevant market's definition should be adjusted appropriately:First,definition of relevant market can never be the premise to apply antitrust law;second,in place of syllogism structure�"market share determined by relevant market' s definition,dominant market position,abuse of market dominant position",�deduction of behavior and plea of relevant market" can be applied as a new structure;third,the controlling force of sharing platform over transaction,the user lock-in and conversion costs,the number of users two-sided market and its structure,substitution analysis agreeing with characteristics of sharing economy can be specific factors to investigated relevant market.At the same time,rule changes of relevant market's definition will affect development of antitrust law in different aspects,including idea of inclusive regulation,enhancing of behavioral regulation model,Rule of Reason analysis used in definition of relevant market,etc.The innovation of this article lies in the full application of the method of economic analysis,introducing the economic characteristics of the sharing economy into the research of antitrust law,and renewing the concept of regulation,the mode of regulation and the technical method of the antitrust law,and keeping pace with the times.