The sharing economy and its impact on the quality of life of the population

The article proposes a study on one of the concepts of the circular economy - the sharing economy. To achieve the goals of sustainable development and reduce environmental threats, the world community has adopted the concept of a circular economy, a closed-loop economy. One of the entrepreneurial models of the circular economy is the sharing economy. The purpose of the study is to develop theoretical provisions on increasing the influence of the sharing economy on improving the quality of life of the population. The sharing economy in our study is considered as a model using which projects aimed at improving the quality of life of the population can be implemented. It is presented that social entrepreneurs play a significant role in implementing of such projects, who strive to achieve the social effect in the field of improving the quality of life of the population. Within the frameworks of the sharing economy social entrepreneurs implement their projects by applying investment resources: impact investing and crowdfunding. Using these investment resources in practices is hindered due to the fact that the entrepreneurs do not have enough knowledge about those and their investment opportunities in a sharing economy. In the theoretical aspect, we believe, there is not enough research on the impact of the sharing economy on improving the quality of life of the population. In this work, an attempt is made to expand the theoretical understanding of the sharing economy aimed at improving the quality of life of the population. As the methodological basis of the study, the author used the basic provisions of economic theory, circular economy, sharing economy, digital economy, the concept of social entrepreneurship, and theoretical and methodological aspects of the quality of life of the population. The information base of the study was the expert and statistical data of the “Our Future” Foundation for Regional Social Programs (https://nb-fund.ru/), HSE University, and other data on the development of the social entrepreneurship sector in Russia. The theoretical result of the study is the definition of some interdisciplinary provisions related to the concept of the quality of life of the population based on the use of investment resources for the implementation of projects of the sharing economy by social entrepreneurs with a view to their further application in research. The practical area of application of the results and provisions will be the use of crowdfunding and impact investing to increase the effectiveness of implementation of projects of social entrepreneurs in order to improve the quality of life of the population.