数据要素市场的分级授权机制研究

Hierarchical data licensing mechanisms in the data market

数据的确权对数据要素市场的发展至关重要。数据在不同场景下所衍生出的权利具有复杂性和差异性,很难使用一个统一的标准进行所有数据权利的确权。本文首次提出通过构建数据要素市场的分级授权机制来解决数据确权问题。通过构建经济学模型,本文发现政府可以通过设计有效的数据要素市场分级授权机制来促使平台企业自发地基于市场规则遵循数据分级授权的要求,一个有效的数据要素市场分级授权机制可有以下作用:(1)可以在遵守最小必要原则的同时,提升愿意授权数据的用户数和平台企业获得的数据总量;(2)可以提升用户福利,并增加用户福利份额;(3)可以在数据要素规模报酬递增水平增强时,更好地提升用户福利及用户福利份额;(4)可以通过制定合理的数据要素授权标准提升用户福利和用户福利份额。本文建议政府制定有效的数据要素市场分级授权指导文件,在促进数据要素市场健康发展的同时,提升数据要素市场的普惠性,从而实现数据要素市场的“共同富裕”。

Delimitation of data rights is critical to the development of the data market.With the development of the digital economy,digital platforms collect a large amount of data in consumption,production and other economic activities.However,scholars are not in agreement on whom these data belong to.For data collected by digital platforms,the basic logic behind the process of delimitating data rights is to clearly demarcate the rights between the users and the digital platforms.However,since the derivative rights of data are diverse in different digital economy scenarios,and the extent to which users and digital platforms each own the rights derived from the data also varies greatly,it is difficult to use a unified standard to clearly delimitate the rights accordingly.To address this gap,we propose to solve the data rights delimitation problem with hierarchical data licensing mechanisms.Given the nature of the digital economy,the basic requirement of digital platforms is to be able to use data legally to promote production activities such as R&D,manufacturing,and consumer preference analysis.Other rights embodied in data that are not related to these production activities are not the focus of digital platforms.Therefore,with hierarchical data licensing mechanisms,users no longer need to consider how to delimitate all the derivative data rights,but only the extent to which their data can be used in the production activities by digital platforms.Through formal economic modeling,we find the hierarchical license of data can benefit both the users and the whole data market.By reviewing the extant literature,this paper presents and compares the relevant definitions of data and differentiates the concept of data from information,ideas,knowledge,etc.Data becomes a factor for production(data factor)once it is used in the production activities,so we then summarize the characteristics of data as a production factor.Compared to other traditional factors such as labor capital or land,data have features such as virtuality,increasing returns to scale,non-rivalry,and negative externality.Also,considering data usually contains personal information,we consider the binary rights attributes of data:property rights,and personal data/privacy rights.These features complicate the role of data as a production factor in economic activities and thus compound the issue of the delimitation of data rights.Based on the above-mentioned features of data,we built economic models to explore how hierarchical data licensing mechanisms might influence the welfare in the data market.First,we analyzed platform companies’choice without hierarchical data licensing mechanisms.Then,we worked under the assumption that the government will design hierarchical data licensing mechanisms to prompt platform companies to comply with the data authorization requirements.If platform companies violate the requirements,they will face a fine.We then constructed two models based on whether the platform company follows the data authorization requirements or not.Model one,in which the platform violates the requirements and the data market is non-hierarchical,and model two,in which the platform complies with the requirements and the data market is hierarchical.In the non-hierarchical model,users can only access the digital platform with full data license;while in the hierarchical model,users can choose to license use of part of their data to access basic platform services or,if they prefer,they can choose to license their full data in order to access all platform services.Based on the economic models,we find that without hierarchical data licensing mechanisms,platform companies are reluctant to perform hierarchical data licensing.We also find the government can design hierarchical data licensing mechanisms by imposing punitive measures for non-compliance,such as setting a suitable fine.Under such mechanisms,the number of users willing to license full data usage declines,but the number of users willing to license partial data rises,and the total amount of data collected by the platform also rises,compared to the non-hierarchical scenario.So,hierarchical data licensing mechanisms meet the requisite minimum requirements of data collection and expands access to the data market to include more users who can benefit from it.We also find that user welfare improves in the hierarchical scenario.In the following section,we further analyze the parameters in the model that influence social welfare.Firstly,we look at how the positive impact of the increasing returns to scale of data on the users willing to license data usage becomes larger in the hierarchical scenario,in contrast to the non-hierarchical scenario.Secondly,as the level of increasing returns to scale of data increases,user welfare and the share of welfare experienced by users are always larger in the hierarchical scenario.Thirdly,the platform can also choose an optimal value of hierarchical criteria to expand data collection.In the situation where the amount of data collected by the platform reaches the maximum value,user welfare and the share of welfare experienced by users are both maximized.In conclusion,this paper shows that the government needs to design effective hierarchical data licensing mechanisms to promote the development of the data market.Such mechanisms can benefit not only users but the whole data market.Besides,hierarchical data licensing mechanisms also improve the welfare share of users,which contributes to achieving the“common wealth”in the allocation of welfare in the data market.