Work and Wealth in the Era of Digital Platforms (acronym: BRIE-ETLA 2015-2018) studies implications of digital platforms on business strategies and national policies. It consists of international scholarly, business and policy relevant, research joint effort of BRIE, The Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, located at the campus of University of California, Berkeley, and ETLA. Besides Tekes, current BRIE-ETLA partners include The Federation of Finnish Technology Industries, Nordea Finland, Vision+, and Wärtsilä.
Digital platforms are roughly understood as internet-/cloud-based software stacks that enable multi-sided interaction. Half of the world’s most valuable brands are associated with digital platforms. One-tenth of the US labor force participate in platform-mediated “gig economy” in some capacity. The gig economy is less prevalent in Finland, and the country has little role in providing global consumer platforms. However, Finland has had some success in using platforms and it has good leads in emerging industrial platforms.
This project studies digital platforms and their evolution in order to support business strategies and national policies. Individual contributions of the project address five inter-related themes: (1) Digital platforms: foundations, feasibility, and extent; (2) Future of jobs; (3) Value creation and wealth capture in digitally-based growth; (4) Variations in national socio-economic and political conditions in adapting to the platform economy; (5) Appropriate business strategies and public policy responses.
Coordinators at BRIE are John Zysman (ETLA Senior Fellow) and Martin Kenney (ETLA Senior Fellow).
