The Digital Revolution and the New Economies

Explain what the sharing economy is and give three examples of platforms or services that represent it, stating which underutilised resource each one makes use of.

What is a digital platform and how does it differ from a traditional shop? Explain the idea of a "two-sided market" with an example (an app that connects people offering accommodation with people looking for it): what does the platform gain by putting them in touch?

What is platform work (gigs through an app) and how does it differ from a traditional job? Compare the timetable, contract, pay and social protection of an app delivery rider and of an employed waiter.

A delivery platform provides flexible work to thousands of riders, but many lack a stable contract and social protection.

1. a) Analyse the advantages and disadvantages of this model for the worker, the company, and the customers.
2. b) How do you evaluate a law that obliges companies to convert them into salaried employees? Reason your answer.

A warehouse automates its lines: packing jobs disappear, and maintenance technician and programmer roles emerge.

1. a) Analyse the net effect on employment and on the type of qualification demanded.
2. b) What educational policies should accompany automation? Reason your answer.

The figure compares the linear model (extract, produce, use, throw away) with the circular economy model.

1. a) Explain in your own words the difference between both models.
2. b) Give an example of a company or product that follows the circular model and explain which part of the cycle it operates in.

What is planned obsolescence (products designed to last a short time or become unusable)? Give an example (a printer that stops working, a phone with no more updates) and explain its relationship with the linear economic model of "use and throw away".

Order these options for an old phone from most to least environmentally desirable: recycle it, throw it in the general waste bin, repair it and keep using it, sell it second-hand. Justify the order with the waste hierarchy (reduce, reuse, recycle).

"If a service is free, you are the product." Explain what that phrase means applied to a free social network: what do users really pay with (data, attention), who buys that "product" and what do they use it for?

Almost all your friends use the same social network and, even if a better one comes along, nobody switches: what is the point of being where nobody is?

1. a) Explain what the network effect is (the value of the service grows with the number of users).
2. b) Reason why the network effect leads to "winner-takes-most" markets and what competition problem it poses.
3. c) What could a regulator or a new competitor do to enter that market? Propose an idea.

The price of a flight changes every time you look at it: it rises if few seats are left, if the date is approaching or if you have already searched for it several times.

1. a) What information does the dynamic pricing algorithm use and what goal does it have for the airline?
2. b) Is it a form of price discrimination? Reason when you consider it legitimate (flights, hotels) and when abusive (basic goods, emergencies).
3. c) What limits or transparency would you demand from these algorithms?

A foreign streaming platform generates 120 million euros in annual subscriptions in Spain, but settles its activity through a low-tax European subsidiary via payments for "intellectual property royalties", paying an effective tax rate in Spain of less than 1 % on its gross revenues. In contrast, a local audiovisual platform with a turnover of 10 million and a profit of 2 million pays a 25 % Corporate Income Tax rate, i.e. a tax bill of 0.5 million (5 % of its turnover).

1. a) Analyse this case from the principles of tax justice (ability to pay and horizontal and vertical equity). What distortion does it generate in competitive conditions compared to the local business fabric?
2. b) One government proposes a unilateral 3 % "digital tax" on the turnover of digital services of large companies; another prefers to join the global minimum 15 % Corporate Tax rate (OECD Pillar Two). Predict the economic incidence of each measure: who will ultimately bear the 3 % tax (firm or consumer) and what tax arbitrage problems does the minimum rate solve compared to the unilateral tax? Justify your answer using the concepts of elasticity and incentives.

Observe this apparent contradiction of the digital economy: the largest tech platforms concentrate a stock market value greater than the GDP of many advanced economies and earn profit margins of 25-30 %, while average aggregate productivity in Western economies grows at historically low rates (around 0,8 % annually).

1. a) Use the concepts of "network effects" (direct and indirect), "switching costs", and economies of scale to justify why digital markets endogenously tend toward "winner-take-all" structures instead of approximating perfect competition.
2. b) An analyst states: "Regulating large platforms will stifle innovation; the free market will spontaneously unseat any digital monopoly as soon as a better alternative emerges". Refute this statement by demonstrating which specific barriers to entry block the contestability of these markets, and predict what will happen to inequality in the functional distribution of income if the public sector does not intervene.

A law firm brings in an AI tool that reviews contracts in minutes: hours of interns' work disappear and demand grows for lawyers who interpret, negotiate and deal with clients.

1. a) Analyse which tasks the AI replaces and which human capabilities it revalues (judgement, personal dealing, responsibility).
2. b) What risk of wage polarisation is there between those who complement the AI and those who compete with it? Reason your answer.
3. c) As a Bachillerato student, which skills would be worth cultivating for this scenario? Justify your answer.