Assessing the Socioeconomic and Distributional Effects of Open Data Policies: Evidence from the U.S. Landsat Program

世界正在向以数据为关键资源的知识经济过渡。数据的可获得性程度--用于科学研究、政府和非营利组织的运作以及增值部门的产品开发--对经济增长和广泛的社会效益具有全球影响。数据的可获得性--以及管理政府收集和政府生成的数据分发的政策--可能会影响科学家获取数据进行研究的能力，影响政府和非营利实体获取数据以开发直接影响世界各地公民的应用程序的能力，以及使用政府数据生成新商业产品的增值商业部门的健康状况。尽管这一问题很重要，但缺乏关于开放数据政策的影响和各种类型的限制对数据获取的影响的研究。这项提议旨在通过侧重于Landsat系列地球观测卫星的研究来帮助填补这一空白，该卫星在其48年的历史中产生了相对一致的数据产品，但经历了各种各样的数据和定价政策，从完全私有化到免费和开放的数据提供。该项目涉及一项关于陆地卫星数据成本随时间变化对向学术、政府和商业用户分发陆地卫星数据的影响的计量研究。虽然以前的研究已经指出，数据成本是数据获取和使用的一个重大障碍，但这项研究将更进一步，提供对各种类型用户的这种影响的程度的量化洞察。它还包括努力开始收集数据，以检查量化和详细描述陆地卫星数据在学术、政府和商业部门使用的方式的可行性。这包括识别相关的学术期刊文章，以及依赖陆地卫星数据的商业、政府和非营利性产品或活动。这项工作的结果将提供有助于提高政府收集数据的数据政策效率的信息。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The world is transitioning to a knowledge economy in which data is a key resource. The extent to which data is made available – for scientific research, operations of government and non-profits, and development of products by the value-added sector – has global implications for economic growth and broad societal benefits. Availability of data – and policies governing the distribution of government-collected and government-generated data in particular – can affect the ability of scientists to access data to conduct research, the ability of government and non-profit entities to access data to develop applications that directly affect citizens around the world, and the health of the value-added commercial sector that uses government data to generate new commercial products. Despite the importance of this issue, there is a lack of research on the impacts of open data policies and the impacts of various types of restrictions on data access. This proposal aims to help to fill that gap through a study focused on the Landsat series of Earth observation satellites, which has generated a relatively consistent data product over its 48-year history, but has experienced a wide variety of data and pricing policies, ranging from full privatization to free and open data provision. This project involves an econometric study of the impact of changes in the cost of Landsat data over time on the distribution of Landsat data to academic, government, and commercial users. While previous studies have noted that the cost of data is a significant barrier to data access and use, this study will go further by providing quantitative insight into the magnitude of this effect on various types of users. It also includes an effort to begin collecting data to examine the feasibility of quantifying and characterizing in detail the way that Landsat data is used in the academic, government, and commercial sectors. This includes identification of relevant academic journal articles, as well as commercial, government, and nonprofit products or activities that rely on Landsat data. The results of this work will provide information that can help to improve the efficiency of data policies for government-collected data.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.