A week is a long time in politics. But six years, it seems, is not quite enough time in the civil service to carry out a study into the economic benefits of free data. In the Treasury's Spending Review in 2000, an interesting part discussed the knowledge economy - in particular whether public organisations should charge for their data, and if so, how much. [The report concludes that] some of the data generated is surplus to the running of government; it's simply there to generate profits, to offset the running costs of various departments. "As a result," the authors add, "the government is able, without abusing the dominant position it has in particular markets, to use pricing strategies which enable it to recoup at least some of the fixed costs of production." But that begs an important question that the Free Our Data campaign - which argues that government agencies should provide their data to the public for free - would like to see resolved....
But the authors then admit it's unclear how government-generated data should be priced. After discussing pricing models, they note the suggestion "that demand would grow rapidly in response to lower prices ... and as basic information is repackaged in innovative ways. The issue needs further empirical work." That is, an economist should see whether cheaper data boosts the economy. So, six years on, has the Treasury followed up its own recommendation and done a study on the effect of data pricing? No, the Treasury told us....Perhaps they'll be interested by a new paper produced by the OECD this week examining public sector content, which notes huge disparities in market size and access between the UK, Europe and other countries.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/04/2006 11:51:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
