A new working paper by Diane Coyle and Annabel Manley looks to contribute to the ‘grand challenge’ of understanding the value of data to our society.
Data is understood to be a key digital economy resource and yet one that is difficult to value, as there are relatively few market prices for data. In addition its non-rival nature and pervasive externalities mean there will also be a wedge between any market price and the social value of the data. This paper proposes an approach to estimating the social value of certain kinds of data sets using a discrete choice approach, and a methodology that could for example be used by public bodies to understand the value of their data investments. We test this approach on a specific data set as proof of concept.
We are grateful for funding for this work from the Omidyar Network
