Today in Liberty: Treasury Department halts Ex-Im deals with Russia, federal court grants D.C. a stay on gun rights ruling
“Peer production” could be huge for the economy if left alone by bureaucrats: A new study from the R Street Institute explains that the emerging “peer production” economy — think Lyft and Airbnb — could “add trillions of dollars to the economy of the next several decades,” making it important for policymakers to back off. “[T]he development of these new modes of doing business has been threatened by legislators and regulators – particularly on the state and local level – who in too many cases attempt to apply regulatory models developed in an earlier era to the individuals and small firms that are innovating through peer production,” write Andrew Moylan and R.J. Lehmann in the study, Five Principles for Regulating the Peer Production Economy. “These actions do little to protect consumers, but rather they prevent innovative ideas from coming to market and keep potential service providers sidelined.” Moylan and Lehmann say that policymakers “should consider the risk of ‘government failure’” and regulate with a “light hand” to prevent suppressing this emerging part of the economy.
