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Nonrivalry and the Economics of Data

Charles I. Jones, Christopher TonettiEconomics微观经济学FT50
American Economic Review2020-09-01Stanford UniversityDOI
Citations691
Influential27
References49
Semantic Scholar

Data is nonrival: a person’s location history, medical records, and driving data can be used by many firms simultaneously. Nonrivalry leads to increasing returns. As a result, there may be social gains to data being used broadly across firms, even in the presence of privacy considerations. Fearing creative destruction, firms may choose to hoard their data, leading to the inefficient use of nonrival data. Giving data property rights to consumers can generate allocations that are close to optimal. Consumers balance their concerns for privacy against the economic gains that come from selling data broadly. (JEL C80, D11, D21, D83, E22, K11, O34)

HoardEconomicsBalance (ability)Economic dataMicroeconomicsMacroeconomicsHistoryDigital Platforms and EconomicsConsumer Market Behavior and PricingAuction Theory and Applications