Data is nonrival: a person’s location history, medical records, and driving data can be used by any number of firms simultaneously. Nonrivalry leads to increasing returns and implies an important role for market structure and property rights. Who should own data? What restrictions should apply to the use of data? We show that in equilibrium, firms may not adequately respect the privacy of consumers. But nonrivalry leads to other consequences that are less obvious. Because of nonrivalry, there may be large social gains to data being used broadly across firms, even in the presence of privacy considerations. Fearing creative destruction, firms may choose to hoard data they own, leading to the inefficient use of nonrival data. Instead, giving the 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 to all interested parties.

中文翻译：

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非竞争性与数据经济学

数据是无与伦比的：一个人的位置历史记录，病历和行车数据可以同时被任意数量的公司使用。非竞争性导致收益增加，并暗示着市场结构和产权的重要作用。谁应该拥有数据？数据使用应受到哪些限制？我们表明，在均衡状态下，企业可能未充分尊重消费者的隐私。但是非竞争性导致其他后果不那么明显。由于具有非竞争性，即使在存在隐私考虑的情况下，跨公司广泛使用的数据也可能会带来巨大的社会收益。由于害怕创造性破坏，公司可能选择ho积自己拥有的数据，从而导致对非竞争性数据的低效使用。相反，将数据属性权限授予使用方可以生成接近最佳的分配。