Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 10, 2023

Estimation of Data Capital and Its Contribution to China’s Economic Growth: From the Perspective of Data Value Chain

(Abstract)

Liu Taoxiong, Rong Ke and Zhang Yadi

With the vigorous development of the digital economy, the significance of data capital in contributing to China’s economic growth is increasingly evident. Data undergoes various stages including collection, cleansing, storage, and processing, which cumulatively adds value to itself, thereby generating data capital. This study adopts the lens of the data value chain, utilizing cost and value-added methods to estimate the value-level data capital formation and data capital stock while employing the storage scale method to ascertain the physical scale of data. Based on the results of data capital estimation, provincial panel models are applied to gauge its contribution to economic growth. The findings indicate that between 2003 and 2020, both the formation and stock of data capital in China have surged on both a total and per capita basis, with a growth rate way faster than that of GDP. Following 2011, the output elasticity and the contribution of data capital to the economic growth rate have both significantly surpassed the previous stages, establishing data capital as an important driver of China’s economic growth.