Network economy as a new economic system

Abstract

This work deals with the study of new socio-economic relations, which are established due to the introduction of information and communication technologies. Associated problems are currently widely discussed in the scientific literature primarily from a technological point of view. Moreover, the attention is paid to ongoing and future changes in various markets, including the labor market. The article proposes to distinguish the concepts of digital revolution and digital economy. It is maintained that the digital revolution is not a technological revolution, but a social revolution that is comparable in importance to the Neolithic, Class and Industrial revolutions. It is grounded that the digital revolution results in the formation of a new economic system, which can be called the network economy. The research objective is to determine the key features of a new type of economy, namely, the forms of the division of labor peculiar to this system, the types of transactions, the ways of coordination of activities and the foundations of power. The scientific hypothesis of the work is the following one: the digital revolution leads not just to structural shifts in the economy and modification of the ways of market interaction, but to a fundamental change in the economic system. The research is based on the methodology of institutional theory. The result of the study is the substantiation of the statement about the change of the paradigm of economic development – the gradual replacement of the market economy by the network economy.