Journal Article: "A Scale Estimation and Structural Analysis of China's Data Factor of Production: From the Perspective of Information Value Chain"

Title: A Scale Estimation and Structural Analysis of China's Data Factor of Production: From the Perspective of Information Value Chain

Authors: Xiang Xu, Xiaoxuan Tian, Ke'aobo Li, Binkai Chen

Language: Chinese

Publication: Contemporary Finance & Economics, No. 2, February 2024, 1005-0892.

English Abstract: 

The data factor of production is playing an important role in today's digital economy. In this paper we create a new statistical method to estimate yearly investment on data factor of production by different provinces, and separate these investments into labor cost on data production and investment cost on data carriers. The former is calculated by the wage data of different industries in different regions, and the latter is based on yearly fixed asset investment data. We calculate China's provincial data factor of production and find that in 2019 China invested 2.23 trillion yuan in the data factor of production, and the yearly growth rate since 2012 is 13.46%. Emprical studies based on provincial data shows that the factor share of data in total output is 15.27%, and the contribution of data factor to China's economic growth is 17.75% from 2012 to 2017.